
Chapter 4: Spreadsheets in Calc
Calculating With Dates and Times
In spreadsheets users can do more than just display dates and times (both taken from the
internal clock of the computer). Calculations can also be made with dates and times. For
instance, to find out exactly one's age in seconds or hours, follow these steps:
1. Open a new spreadsheet.
2. Enter a date in cell A1. e.g. a birthday, such as.,1/3/48.
3. Enter the following formula in cell A3: =NOW()-A1
4. Press Enter or click the Accept icon on the formula bar( ). The result appears in
date format.
5. Right-click this cell (i.e. bring up its context menu) since the exercise is to see the
difference between two dates as a number of days, the format of cell A3 should be set as a
number.
6. Select Format Cells....
7. The Cell Attributes dialogue appears.
1. On the Numbers tab, the Number category will appear highlighted. The format is set
to General which causes, among other things, the result of calculations containing
date entries to also be displayed as a date.
2. Set the number format to -1,2 34,for example.
3. Press OK to close the dialogue.
8. Cell A3 will now contain the number of days between today's date and the specified date.
9. Experiment with some additional formulae:
1. in A4 enter =A3* 24 to calculate the hours.
2. in A5 enter =A4*60 for the minutes.
3. in A6 enter =A5*60 for seconds.
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