Hi Fellow Excel Addict,

The days are getting longer here in Canada and, although the winters are beautiful, I am looking forward to spring. Playing soccer in a school gym just isn't the same. I hope wherever in the world you are that you are having a great week also.

Each week I try to provide a variety of tips to help you in your quest to master Excel. I don't claim to know everything about Excel even though I have been using it for more than ten years. I realized a long time ago that Excel is so powerful that I will never know everything. I am learning new things every day.

I'd bet that you probably know things about Excel that I don't. So I'm asking you to tell me some of the things you like best about Excel. Also, what are some of the things you'd like to be able to do with Excel? I've seen people use Excel for many amazing things. The sky's the limit. Use your imagination and you may be surprised at what's possible.

I hope to hear from you soon.

To Your Success!
Francis Hayes (The Excel Addict)

P.S. Watch out for the viruses. The worms are on the move again this week.

EXCEL SCREENSAVERS: Don't forget to check out the cool Excel screensavers in the new downloads section of my website. http://www.TheExcelAddict.com/downloads

1. Make sure the sheet you want to hide is the active sheet.
2. From the Format menu, select Sheet, and Hide. The sheet will now be hidden from view. (XL2002: right-click the sheet tab and select Hide).

Jim Rohn's Weekly E-Zine is a free weekly publication dedicated to providing valuable insights and information that can help empower and improve both your business and personal life. Find out more at http://www.TheExcelAddict.com/rd/jimrohn.htm.

All you have to do to qualify each month is send an email to your Excel friends and associates recommending my newsletter and website. Include a BCC to referral@TheExcelAddict.com and for each person that you refer, your name will go into the draw.

Please, recommend only to people you know and who are Microsoft Excel users.

*** Each monthly winner will be notified by email and will have 10 days to reply with a shipping address. If I don't receive a reply within 10 days, another name will be drawn.

Referral Contest Winners
January December November October September August July June	Luis Bolivar, Maracaibo, Venezuela Joseph Mathew, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Alexandre Gusmao, Lisbon, Portugal Apollo Tigalo, Angeles City, Philippines Jim Henderson, California, USA Beki Chambers, Indiana, USA Keith Bannister, North Carolina, USA Lisa Hobbs, Pennsylvania, USA

Have you ever needed to determine the number of days, months or years between two dates? Calculating the number of days using Excel is pretty simple. Just use a formula to subtract the later date from the earlier date.

For example, if cell A1 contains 1-Jan-2004 and cell A2 contains 03-Mar-2004, you simply enter the formula =A2-A1 in cell A3 to get the number of days. At first the result may look strange. That's because Excel assumed you were entering another date and automatically formatted cell A3 as a date. To fix that, go to the Format menu, select Cells, click the Number tab and select General from the Category list. Your answer should be 62.

However, calculating the number of months or years between two dates isn't so obvious. There's a Function in Excel that makes this task easy but for some reason Microsoft has hidden it away. You won't find it in the Paste Functions list (Insert, Functions). The function is called DATEDIF (i.e. date difference).

Let's use the same dates as above. The syntax for the function is

Our formula to calculate the number of complete months between the two dates would be

Similarly, the formula to calculate the number of complete years is =DATEDIF(A1,A2,"y"), although in our example it would yield 0 complete years. Change cell A1 to a date a year or more earlier and you'll see the result.

A couple of things to keep in mind about the DATEDIF function:

1. The start date must be less than or equal to the end date, otherwise it will give an error.
2. Acceptable interval codes are "d", "m", "y", "ym", "yd", "md" (with quotes)
3. It may appear obvious what the "ym", "yd", and "md" interval codes do but they require a second look. The "ym" interval code yields the number of months between the two dates as if they were in the same year and ignores the year. The "yd", and "md" interval codes yields the number of days between the two dates as if they were in the same year and ignores the year.

There are tens of millions of other Microsoft Excel users all over the world. The vast majority of them have a very limited knowledge of Excel's capabilities. My goal is to share this information with everyone I possibly can and help them to benefit from Excel's amazing capabilities.

Please help me spread the word about my newsletter. If you know other Excel users, please tell them about "Spreadsheet Tips From An Excel Addict". I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please refer only people you know personally, who use Microsoft Excel and would benefit from this newsletter.

Here's a trick I use anytime I can't find a shortcut that I know is in there somewhere.

1. From the Internet Explorer menu select Favorites
2. Move the cursor down and right-click on one of the folders.
3. Click on Find. (The Find dialog box appears).
4. Click in the 'Look In' field and delete all text to the right of \Favorites\
5. Enter your search term in the Named field.
6. Click Find Now.