Excel Get Day of Week

Introduction to Excel Date Functions

When working with dates in Excel, it’s often necessary to extract specific information from a date, such as the day of the week. Excel provides several functions to manipulate dates, including the WEEKDAY and TODAY functions, which can be used to determine the day of the week.

Using the WEEKDAY Function

The WEEKDAY function in Excel returns the day of the week as a number (1-7) for a given date. The syntax for the WEEKDAY function is:

WEEKDAY(serial_number, [return_type])

Where: - serial_number is the date for which you want to find the day of the week. - [return_type] is an optional argument that specifies the day of the week to return as a number.

For example, to find the day of the week for the date 2022-01-01, you can use the following formula:

=WEEKDAY(“2022-01-01”)

This formula returns 7, indicating that January 1, 2022, is a Saturday.

Understanding Return Types

The [return_type] argument in the WEEKDAY function allows you to specify which day of the week is considered the first day. The possible values for [return_type] are:

• 1 (Default): Sunday (1) to Saturday (7)
• 2: Monday (1) to Sunday (7)
• 3: Monday (0) to Sunday (6)

For example, if you want to consider Monday as the first day of the week, you can use the following formula:

=WEEKDAY(“2022-01-01”, 2)

This formula returns 6, indicating that January 1, 2022, is a Saturday, with Monday being the first day of the week.

Using the TEXT Function

To display the day of the week as text (e.g., “Saturday”) instead of a number, you can use the TEXT function in combination with the WEEKDAY function. The syntax for the TEXT function is:

TEXT(value, format_text)

Where: - value is the value to be formatted. - format_text is the format to apply to the value.

For example, to display the day of the week for the date 2022-01-01 as text, you can use the following formula:

=TEXT(“2022-01-01”, “dddd”)

This formula returns Saturday.

Using the TODAY Function

To find the day of the week for the current date, you can use the TODAY function in combination with the WEEKDAY or TEXT function. The syntax for the TODAY function is:

TODAY()

For example, to find the current day of the week as a number, you can use the following formula:

=WEEKDAY(TODAY())

This formula returns the day of the week as a number (1-7) for the current date.

Example Use Cases

The following are some example use cases for the WEEKDAY and TEXT functions:

Date	WEEKDAY Formula	TEXT Formula
2022-01-01	=WEEKDAY(“2022-01-01”)	=TEXT(“2022-01-01”, “dddd”)
2022-02-01	=WEEKDAY(“2022-02-01”, 2)	=TEXT(“2022-02-01”, “dddd”)

📝 Note: The WEEKDAY and TEXT functions can be used in a variety of scenarios, such as scheduling, data analysis, and reporting.

To summarize, the WEEKDAY and TEXT functions in Excel can be used to extract the day of the week from a date. By understanding the syntax and return types of these functions, you can effectively manipulate dates and extract the information you need.