Format Dates

Turn mysterious numbers like 46083 into readable dates — and pull out the weekday.

You will learn to

• Understand dates as serial numbers
• Apply a long date format
• Show the weekday with TEXT

How it works

Excel stores every date as a serial number — 1 is January 1, 1900 — so a date can suddenly appear as 46083 if its format is lost. Select the cells and choose a date format (Home → Number Format, or Ctrl+1 → Date). The value never changes, only how it is shown.

To get the weekday as text, use =TEXT(B2,"dddd") for "Monday" or "ddd" for "Mon".

=TEXT(B2,"dddd")