#conditional formula

Timestamps in excel cells can just be ignored if they don't affect your formula. Don't get it?

Illustration: You are trying to find out using excel conditional formula which cells have values ess than or equal a particular date. A1 which contains 1/1/11 equals A2 which contains 1/1/11 (=A1=A2) returns False, meaning the values you are trying to compare are not equal. Weird. The result of the formula should have been True because are just the same. Not necessarily.

One or both of those cells might contain a timestamp. How a cell value appears depends on its formatting. So if the format was m/d/yy then, naturally, you would see 1/1/2011. The formula bar will show what a cell really contains.

Now, change the format of those cell to numbers. A1 will show 40544.98 and will just show 40544. So, technically, they are not equal. To remove the decimal values, use excel int function which leaves just the whole numbers.

=int(A1)=int(A2) should result to true.