Al Arafat Siddique
In this article, we’ll discuss how to use the built–in functions in Excel to create a day countdown of a future event. This day countdown is commonly used to check and calculate the number of days left to start or end of a future planned event, such as birthday, graduation, tour, Independence Day, any sports event, and more.
Download Practice Workbook
Download this practice workbook to exercise while you are reading this article.
2 Suitable Examples to Create a Day Countdown in Excel
1. Use of the TODAY Function to Create a Day Countdown in Excel
Using the TODAY function, we can count down the number of days left to start an event easily. The TODAY function returns the current date displayed in the worksheet and gets updated every time we open the worksheet. This belongs to the dynamic date type that keeps updating while performing calculations. Here is a common template to use.
In this example, we’re going to make a day count down for the Summer Olympics 2024 starting on 26th July. let’s follow the simple steps below to accomplish this.
Steps:
- In cell C3, let’s put the starting date of the Summer Olympics 2024.
- After that, in cell B4, put the following formula.
=C3-TODAY()
- Now, press Enter.
The output is in the Date format as we subtracted two dates from each other.
- From the Home tab, go to the Number Format dropdown and choose the General format.
- Finally, the Date format is changed to the General format and the number of days left to start the Summer Olympics in days.
- Moreover, we changed the starting date to the Long Date format to make it more reader-friendly.
Read More: Excel Formula to Count Days from Date to Today (8 Effective Ways)
Similar Readings:
- Excel Formula to Calculate Number of Days Between Today & Another Date (6 Quick Ways)
- How to Calculate Average Tenure of Employees in Excel
- Excel formula to Calculate Age on a Specific Date
- How to Subtract/Minus Days from Today’s Date in Excel (4 Simple Ways)
- Use DateDiff Function in Excel VBA (5 Examples)
2. Create a Day Countdown in Excel Using the NOW Function
The Excel’s built-in NOW function returns the current date and time in a calculation. We can also use this function along with the ROUNDUP function to display a day count down of the Summer Olympics 2024. In cell B4, let’s put the following formula and press Enter.
=ROUNDUP(C3-NOW(),0)
Explanation
The ROUNDUP function rounds up a fractional number to the next integer. It takes two arguments-=ROUNDUP(number, num_digits)
We put C3-NOW() function as the number argument of the ROUNDUP function. And we used 0 as num_digits as we don’t want any fraction number of days rather a rounded-up number in the display.
If we normally used the function without the ROUNDUP function, the output would look like this.
And after converting the number format to the General format of the output, it would return a fraction of the number of days left to start the event.
Read More: 3 Suitable Excel Formula to Count Days from Date
Notes
Let’s say we passed the starting date of an event; the countdown function will start displaying a negative number of days. For example, we can see a countdown for Copa America 2021 that ended 266 days before the date of writing this article.
To avoid this and show 0 instead of the negative number of days, we need to use the MAX function. The formula is-
=MAX(0,C3-TODAY())
Conclusion
Now, we know how to create a day countdown in Excel using simple formulas. Hopefully, it’ll help you to make your own day count-down dashboard for an event to start. Any questions or suggestions don’t forget to put them in the comment box below
How can you change the fill/text color as you get closer to the date? Say, 30 days out turn to orange, 7 days out to red, day of/beyond black? Thank you!
Hi, BRENT!
You have asked a fantastic question.
You can change the fill/text color automatically by using conditional formatting. You can apply multiple rules to a cell using this. To learn about conditional formatting in this regard, you can go to the following link.
https://www.exceldemy.com/excel-conditional-formatting-greater-than-another-cell/
Regards,
Tanjim Reza