How do i calculate the current date and time for single cell in excel?

Question

How do i calculate the current date and time in excel? I have first column Name, second Date and third Time. The problem is when i change the name column, all previous entries of date and time change to the current one.

Eg

Name      Date      Time
George    7/6/2017  20:45
John      7/6/2017  20:45
Michael

If i change the next cell to Michael, all above entries change to the same date and same current time

Name      Date      Time
George    7/6/2017  20:49
John      7/6/2017  20:49
Michael   7/6/2017  20:49

Here is the function for the calculation of the time:

=IF($J4<>0, NOW(),)

Here is the function for the calculation of the date:

=IF($J4<>0,TODAY(),)

How do i fix this, thanks?

Answer 1

NOW() and TODAY() are functions. Whenever the worksheet recalculates - which happens, by default, whenever a value is entered into a cell, the results of these formulas will also change.

To insert the current date into a cell you can use the shortcut Ctrl-; , and Ctrl-Shift-; for the current time. These are fixed values and won't change after being entered.

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It is possible to work with fixed values and formulas.

• switch to manual calculation
• fill in the rows, leaving the date/time formulas intact
• copy/paste special, values, all the date/time formulas
• switch back to automatic calculation

This is a risky strategy though. If you don't follow it exactly you could end-up with all the dates/times having the same value, with no way to reinstate the entered dates/times. It isn't worth the risk when the keyboard shortcuts are available.