Susan C. Daffron

Award-winning fiction & nonfiction author

  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Media Kit
  • Other Work
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • New releases

November 3, 2006 By Susan Daffron

How Long Until Vacation?

Here’s a nifty use for Excel: figuring out how long it is until your next vacation. Excel can easily perform arithmetic on dates because it stores them as a plain old number. The next time you are moping in your cubicle wondering when you can head off to the Bahamas, you can fire up Excel, look like you’re working and calculate how long it is until you are free. Here’s how you do it. Suppose trip to the Bahamas begins on April 12, 2007 and today is November 16, 2006.

Excel stores dates as a regular serial number. In Excel’s world view, time began on January 1, 1900. That was day one; January 2, 1900 was day 2, and so forth.  To begin your calculations, type a date into cell A1. Excel understands slashes, so type 11/16/2006. If you click in the cell and choose Format|Cells, you’ll see Excel knows it is a date (the calculations won’t work if the number is not formatted as a date). Now in cell A2, type in 4/12/2007. To find out how many days it is, you just do simple subtraction. In cell A3, type =A2-A1 to subtract November 16 from April 12. The result, however, is formatted as a date, which throws you off. Now, with your cursor in Cell A3, choose Format|Cells and change the type to General. You can now tell that the result is 147 days.

If you want to really get fancy, you can use one of Excels date formulas. For example, the NETWORKDAYS formula calculates how many work days there are between two days. In cell A4, type =NETWORKDAYS(A1,A2). You find that you have only 106 days of cubicle time left.

If you get an #NAME? error, it means you don’t have the Analysis ToolPak add in installed. Choose Tools|Add Ins and see if it is in the list. If so place a check mark next to it. If you don’t see any add-ins listed, you may need to install them from your Office CD.

Filed Under: Logical Tips, Office

About Susan Daffron

Susan Daffron is the author of the Alpine Grove Romantic Comedies, the Jennings & O'Shea mysteries, and multiple award-winning nonfiction books, including several about pets and animal rescue. Check out all her books on her Amazon Author page.

Release Notices

Subscribe with the form below to receive an email notice when Susan releases a new book and get some fun free “special features” too!


Recent Posts

  • Reflections Upon One Million Words in 5 Years
  • How to remember character details without losing your mind
  • Cover Reveal: Sensing Trouble (Jennings and O’Shea – Book 1)
  • Could you use a laugh? (I could.)
  • Need an escape? Get 60 free and .99 ebooks Nov 18-19
  • Fun and a Whole Lot of Fur
  • Cover Reveal – Daydream Retriever (Alpine Grove #10)
  • Musings
  • Business
  • Furry Thoughts
  • Recreation
  • Rural Living
  • Technology
  • Vegan Stuff
  • Writing & Publishing
  • Alpine Grove Novels
  • Ebooks
  • Jennings and O’Shea Novels
  • Marketing
  • Promotion
  • Self Publishing
  • Writing
  • Pets
  • Cats
  • Dogs
  • Misc Pet
  • Rescue
  • Site Archives

Copyright © 2025 Susan C. Daffron and Logical Expressions, Inc. All rights reserved. · Privacy Policy