[libreoffice-users] Re: How to enter Dates in a format to allow the counting of days lapsed between a "from a date" cell and a "to a date' cell

Am 19.01.2012 09:27, MSwhip wrote:
> I am interested in learning how to enter dates in cells in a format that
> would allow me to calculate number of days lapsed between a "from date" and
> a "to date" entered in 2 different cells.
>
> Could anyone please help
>
> Thank you

Date entry works almost independently from cell formatting. The one and 
only crucial setting is the *number format locale*. By default this is 
the same as in Tools>Options>Languages...
12/4 entered in a spreadsheet cell should always give 12th of April in 
this year ...
... unless the locale is US English. Then you get 4th of December.
... unless the number format is of category "Text". Then you get a 
literal text value of 4 characters "12/4".
... unless the number format is of category "Fraction". Then you get a 
cell value of 3.
... unless the number format is of category "Percent" which results in a 
text value "12/4%" which won't evaluate to 3%.

*Any other* number format setting will enter the *correct value* 41011 
or 41247 which is the day number of 2012-04-12 or US English 2012-12-04 
respectively.

12/ entered into a cell gives the 12th day of the current month, even 
with US English locale. 12th day of January 2012 is day number 40920 
when you apply some decimal format.
40920 is *exactly the same value* as formatted numbers 2012-01-12, 
12/1/2012, 1/12/2012(US), 4092000%, and thousands of other formattings 
of that very same number.
However, the 5-digit text "40920" is a completely different value and so 
are the character sequences "2012-01-12", "12/1/2012", "1/12/2012"(US) 
and "4092000%"
All spreadsheet formulas ignore the entire formatting thing. They 
perform all arithmetics with numbers and nothing but numbers.
Once a cell has a value (number or text, calculated or entered), no 
formatting attribute will ever change that value, no color, no border, 
no font, nor number format. This is a true feature and all this is not 
Calc specific.

[Tutorial] Ten concepts that every Calc user should know:
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=39529



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