Easter Date

[rpring]

=FLOOR(DAY(MINUTE(B15/38)/2+56)& " /5/"& B15,7)-36
The above formula will calculate Easter Friday date for the year entered into cell B15.
How does it work?

 

[dcofer]

The formula did not work when I tried it. It produced dates in August, December, June, and other months throughout the year when I placed different years in B15.

 

[rpring]

Sorry,
I should have said the formula goes in cell C15 and the number format is
"dddd dd/mm/yyyy"
Russell

 

[dcofer]

That is what I did, but maybe I still did something wrong.

I pasted the formula into cell c15, and entered a date in cell b15. I also copied the formula down several rows and entered different years in the rows below b15.

I used a date format of mm/dd/yyyy. Could that have caused the error?

 

[Expiry]

It worked for me. Just type the year in B15. 2008,2009 etc.

 

[jongooligan]

This from one of John Walkenbach's books:

=DOLLAR(("4/"&D25)/7+MOD(19*MOD(D25,19)-7,30)*14%,)*7-6

It won a prize for being the most efficient way to calculate Easter Sunday for any given year (in D25). Even he said he couldn't be bothered with figuring out how it works.

 

[barry houdini]

The formula did not work when I tried it.

The formula posted by rpring only works correctly if your default date format [set within Regional settings in control panel] is European, i.e. dd/mm/yy. There are other versions which work for US date formats, or with any format, see Chip Pearson's advice here

 

[rpring]

Both formula give the same result for 2008
=DOLLAR(("4/"&D25)/7+MOD(19*MOD(D25,19)-7,30)*14%,)*7-6
Gives the date for Easter Sunday 39530

=FLOOR(DAY(MINUTE(B15/38)/2+56)& " /5/"& B15,7)-36
Is set to return Easter Friday 39528

The date format can be set to what you like
I would still like to know how they work.

Russell