How to Use Excel's NOW Function

By eHow Computers Editor

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Excel's NOW function returns the current date and time and is commonly used in date and time calculations. The cell containing this result will be formatted as a date if its format previously was General. The following steps will show how to use Excel's NOW function.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Step1

Examine the way Excel stores dates internally. It uses a positive number representing the number of days beginning with a default date. Windows uses January 1, 1900, as serial number 1 and Excel for the Macintosh uses January 2, 1904, as serial number 1.

Step2

Observe how the time is stored. Excel stores the time as the decimal fraction of the date's serial number which can be multiplied by 24 to determine the time. For example, if the decimal value is 0.25, the time would be 0.25 x 24 = 6 or 6 a.m.

Step3

Learn the syntax of NOW. It is simply NOW() and does not require any arguments. The NOW function returns the serial number corresponding to the user's current system time.

Step4

Study the way NOW is updated. It is not updated continuously and is calculated only when the user runs a macro containing NOW or calculates the worksheet.

Step5

Verify that running NOW changes a cell's format. Select a previously unformatted cell, select "Format" from the menu bar and select the "Number" panel. Notice how "General" is active in the category drop-down list. Now enter =NOW() in this cell and tab out of it. Check the format of the cell again and you should see that it has changed to a Custom format of m/d/yyyy h:mm (by default).