Dates in XL are stored as long integers. Basically it is the number of days
since Jan 1, 1900. If you subtract today - 0 you end up with 39,644. Look for
places where you might be subtracting 0 or such...
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HTH...

Jim Thomlinson


" wrote:

Hi, I want to calculate the amount of time between two dates, using
the following:
=IF('Data Entry'!A2=0,,IF('Data Entry'!S2="",Background!A2-'Data
Entry'!D2,'Data Entry'!S2-'Data Entry'!D2))
My problem is, that on some rows the calculation works fine and will
return a meaningful result, yet in others it returns a result such as
"39696". The formula, formatting and all other inputs seem fine, and
there is no reason that I have been able to identify yet which is
consistent between the differeing result.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much...