ISDATE

• How to use ISDATE formula?
• Examples of using ISDATE formula
• ISDATE formula not working?
• Similar formulas to ISDATE

Usage

Use the ISDATE formula with the syntax shown below, it has 1 required parameter:

=ISDATE(value)

1. value (required):
   The value that needs to be checked if it is a valid date or not.

Examples

Check if a value is a valid date

You can use the ISDATE formula to quickly check if a value in a cell is a valid date or not. This is useful when you are working with large datasets and need to quickly identify invalid date values.

Conditional formatting for dates

You can use the ISDATE formula in combination with conditional formatting to highlight cells that contain valid dates. This can help you quickly identify important dates, such as deadlines or milestones.

Filtering by dates

You can use the ISDATE formula to filter data based on dates. For example, you can filter a list of transactions to only show those that occurred on a specific date or within a particular date range.

Common Mistakes

Incorrect argument type

ISDATE only accepts a single argument of any type. Passing multiple arguments or the wrong type of argument will result in an error.

Invalid date format

ISDATE considers a date to be any valid date format recognised by Google Sheets. If the input value is not recognised as a date, ISDATE will return FALSE.

Confusion with ISTEXT

ISDATE and ISTEXT can be easily confused. Remember that ISDATE checks if a value is a date, while ISTEXT checks if a value is text.

Time zone issues

ISDATE considers dates without a specified time zone to be in the sheet's time zone. If you need to compare dates across time zones, make sure to use the appropriate functions or adjust the time zone settings.

Missing value

If the input value is empty or refers to a cell that is blank, ISDATE will return FALSE.

Related Formulas

The following functions are similar to ISDATE or are often used with it in a formula:

• DATE

  The DATE formula is used to create a date object in Google Sheets. It takes three arguments: year, month, and day and returns a date. This formula is useful when you need to perform date calculations or create date-based charts and graphs.

• DATEDIF

  The DATEDIF function in Google Sheets calculates the difference between two dates using a specified unit of measurement. This function is commonly used to calculate the length of time between two dates, such as the number of days, months, or years. The function is particularly useful when working with financial or project planning data.

• YEAR

  The YEAR formula in Google Sheets returns the year of a specified date. This function is useful when you need to extract the year from a date for analysis or calculations. The YEAR formula takes one argument, which is the date from which to extract the year. The output is a four-digit number representing the year.

• MONTH

  The MONTH formula is used to extract the month from a given date, returning it as a number between 1 and 12. This function is commonly used to summarize and analyze data that includes dates.

• DAY

  The DAY function is used to extract the day of the month from a given date. It takes in a single argument, a date in a valid format, and returns the day of the month as a number between 1 and 31. This function can be useful for tasks such as sorting or filtering data based on the day of the month.

Learn More

You can learn more about the ISDATE Google Sheets function on Google Support.