Using TODAY Date Function in formula and leaving cell blank until needed.

**slugger23** · 01-14-2016, 04:18 PM

Good Afternoon,

I am new here and trying to work more with formulas in my work excel sheets.

I am currently working on a sheet in which I have dates in Column H and I need to calculate the number of days that have passed since in column K.
I am currently using =DATEDIF(H538,TODAY(),"d") and it is working fine.

My problem is that sheet is shared and I have others entering data that are not savy enough to copy the formula down and I have to go back and correct them.
I would like to copy the formula all the way down the column, but do not want it to show the scientific date for today. I would prefer it remain blank until something Is typed in column H.

I have tried to add an if to it and cannot seem to figure it out.
=IF(H551="","",IF=DATED(H551,TODAY(),"d"))

It hides the formula, but when something is typed in H, I get the results #NAME? instead of the answer to my calculation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

**TMS** · 01-14-2016, 05:04 PM

Look at it again and compare it to the original.

Formula:

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

Try:

Formula:

Please Login or Register  to view this content.

It's also not a good idea to refer to TODAY() everywhere as it is a volatile function. Put =TODAY() in a cell somewhere and then refer to that cell. For example, put =TODAY() in cell A1 and then refer to $A$1. Note that the dollar signs are important.

Regards, TMS