Excel Formula: Create Dynamic Date List
Supposing in Excel, you want to create a dynamic date list based on a given start date, what formula can you use?
If you want to follow along with this tutorial, please download the example spreadsheet.
Generic formula:
| Start_date+ROWS(date_list)-1-[offset] |
Syntaxt and Arguments
| Start_date: the date that the dynamic date list starts from. |
| Date_list: the cell that you want to place the first date of the date list. |
| Offset: Optional, if you want to create a dynamic date list based on the start date, this can be omitted, if you want to create a dynamic date from the days before the start date, this is the number of days before the start date. |
Return Value
The formula returns a value in date format.
How this formula works
The start date is in cell C2, the offset value is in cell C3, the cell E3 is the cell that you want to start the dynamic date list. Please use below formula:
| =$C$2+ROWS($E$3:E3)-1-$C$3 |
Press Enter key to get the first date, then drag auto fill handle down to the cells to apply this formula.
Explanation
ROWS function: returns the number of rows in a reference or an array.
=$C$2+ROWS($E$3:E3)-1-$C$3
=$C$2+1-1-4
=$C$2-4
=12/2/2020
Remark
1) If you want to create a dynamic date list starting from today, please use the formula as this:
| TODAY()+ROWS(date_list)-1 |
2) If you want to get the weekday and month name from the date list, please use the TEXT function as these:
=TEXT(E3,"dddd")
=TEXT(E3,"mmmm")
Relative Formulas
- Count days of month
This tutorial provides formulas to count the total days of the month based on given date. - Count days until expiration date
To count the days between today and each expiration date in Excel by formula - Create date range from two dates
This tutorial provides a formula with TEXT function to create a date range based on two dates in text format in Excel. - Create weekly date range
In this tutorial, it provides a formula to quickly get the weekly date range in Excel.
Relative Functions
- Excel WEEKNUM Function
Returns the week number of the given date in a year - Excel WORKDAY Function
Adds workdays to the given start date and returns a workday - Excel MONTH Function
The MONTH is used to get the month as integer number (1 to 12) from date - Excel DAY Function
DAY function gets the day as a number (1 to 31) from a date - Excel NOW Function
Get the current time and date
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