How to change the date format in Microsoft Excel We're using a spreadsheet that includes dates of hire for employees of a fictitious company, to show different ways to format dates in Excel.

Use Microsoft Excel's TODAY() function in simple expressions to highlight the current date and past and future dates.

Microsoft Word has a date field, but it's not easy to use in an expression. If you need to update dates in a document, use Excel to calculate the dates and then run a mail merge.