Calculate an Age With the DATEDIF Function
One use for Excel’s DATEDIF function is to calculate a person’s current age. If you don’t feel like dragging out a calendar, a simple spreadsheet formula can come to the rescue. Alternatively, use the function to compute the difference between any two dates. In the following formula, the DATEDIF function determines a person’s current age in years, months and days. To make the formula easier to work with, a person’s birth date is entered into cell E1 of a worksheet (see the example below). The cell reference to this location is entered into the formula. If the birth date is stored in a different cell in the worksheet, the three cell references in the formula need to be changed. The formula uses DATEDIF three times to calculate first the number of years, then the number of months, and then the number of days between the two dates. The three parts of the formula are:
Concatenate the Formula Together
The ampersand ( & ) is a concatenation symbol in Excel. One use for concatenation is to join number data and text data together when used in a single formula. For example, the ampersand joins the DATEDIF function to the text Years, Months, and Days in the three sections of the formula.
The TODAY() Function
The formula also makes use of the TODAY() function to enter the current date into the DATEDIF formula. Since the TODAY() function uses the computer’s serial date to find the current date, the function continually updates every time a worksheet is recalculated.
Example: Calculate Your Current Age With DATEDIF
This example of the DATEDIF function calculates your current age:
