Determining Differences Between Dates

Summary: Do you need to do some simple math using dates in a your macro? One of the easy functions you can use is the DateDiff function. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

When you are programming macros, you should know that dates are stored internally, within variables, as serial numbers. The serial number represents the number of days elapsed since a starting "base date," specifically since 1 January 100. This means that you can perform math with the serial numbers, if desired. You can, for instance, find the number of days between two dates by simply subtracting the dates from each other.

If you want to get fancier in your date calculations, you can use the DateDiff function. This function allows you, for instance, to determine the number of weeks or months between two dates. In order to use the function to find this type of information, you would do as follows:

iNumWeeks = DateDiff("ww", dFirstDate, dSecondDate)
iNumMonths = DateDiff("m", dFirstDate, dSecondDate)

The first line determines the number of weeks between the two dates, and the second determines the number of months between them.

Tip #808 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Determining Differences Between Dates