Concatenate Date as Date, not Number!

[Desu Nota from Columbus]

I am trying to achieve the following format:

yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss.000


In actuality I always want the time to be 07:00:00.000. I tried making a custom format as yyyy-mm-dd 07:00:00.000 and it didn't work.

Now I tried to input a date in C1, and concatenate it in A1 to 07:00:00.000, but instead of the date being concatenated, Excel is combining the number value (i.e 40704).

A1= C1& " 07:00:00.000"
B1=Start Date----->
C1=2011-06-10 (formatted as yyyy-mm-dd)


A1 Result: 40704 07:00:00.000

Desired Result: 2011-06-10 07:00:00.000

 

[Trevor G]

Try using something like this in the custom format.

yyyy-mm-dd h:mm:ss

Sample below after entering date formula

Sheet4

<TABLE style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff; PADDING-LEFT: 2pt; WIDTH: 396px; PADDING-RIGHT: 2pt; FONT-FAMILY: Calibri,Arial; HEIGHT: 37px; FONT-SIZE: 11pt" border=1 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><COLGROUP><COL style="WIDTH: 30px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><COL style="WIDTH: 128px"></COLGROUP><TBODY><TR style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #cacaca; FONT-SIZE: 8pt; FONT-WEIGHT: bold"><TD> </TD><TD>G</TD></TR><TR style="HEIGHT: 18px"><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #cacaca; FONT-SIZE: 8pt">1</TD><TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: right">2011-06-14 14:06:34</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE style="BORDER-BOTTOM-STYLE: groove; BORDER-BOTTOM-COLOR: #00ff00; BORDER-RIGHT-STYLE: groove; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fffcf9; BORDER-TOP-COLOR: #00ff00; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; BORDER-TOP-STYLE: groove; COLOR: #000000; BORDER-RIGHT-COLOR: #00ff00; FONT-SIZE: 10pt; BORDER-LEFT-STYLE: groove; BORDER-LEFT-COLOR: #00ff00"><TBODY><TR><TD>Spreadsheet Formulas</TD></TR><TR><TD><TABLE style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-SIZE: 9pt" border=1 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2><TBODY><TR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #cacaca; FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><TD>Cell</TD><TD>Formula</TD></TR><TR><TD>G1</TD><TD>=NOW()</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

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[Jonmo1]

In A1, try

=C1+"07:00:00.000"

 

[JamesW]

Hi,

Try:

=TEXT(E3,"yyyy/mm/dd") & " 07:00:00.000"

Personally though, I prefer =CONCATENATE although there is no real advantage to either.

=CONCATENATE(TEXT(E3,"yyyy/mm/dd")," 07:00:00.000")

 

[Desu Nota from Columbus]

Trevor: Already used that custom format; as specified I wanted the time to always be 7 o'clock after inputting a date.

James: I didn't try your formula because Jonmo's was quicker and worked.

Jonmo1: This did the trick.


Thank you all for the help.

 

[Jonmo1]

Glad to help, thanks for the feedback.

 

[Desu Nota from Columbus]

Can you explain why using the plus sign returns the date from C1 instead of the Excel-prescribed number?

I just assumed that the plus sign wouldn't work because you "add" numbers. Is it because we used parenthesis around the time which makes it a string?

 

[Jonmo1]

When you concatenate (either with & or the concatenate function), excel returns a TEXT string..
So the concatenate doesn't see the date as a date, it sees it's underlying value which is the date's serial number(40704), and returns it as a text string..

When you ADD, it sees it as a date.
And when performing math functions (+ - * /) Excel tries to coerce text strings into numbers.. if it can.
Excel sees "07:00:00.000" as a numerical time value.
So it adds them together, the date+time.

Hope that clears it up.