Chad,

Use a formula like

=IF(A2="","",B2-A2+1)

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP



"chad" wrote in message
...
seems i can't see the forest for the trees again. your advice worked.
however, another issue has come up. after i formatted all of my cells to
calculate the duration of a particular task the number 1 shows up in that
cell if no start and end dates have been entered yet. this schedule will
be
constanly updated and changing so i won't always have my dates in place
from
the begining but i would like to have my "running total" duration current.
with that said my total will not be accurate since 1 will be added at each
task not yet assigned a start and a stop date.

thanks

"Bernie Deitrick" wrote:

Use two date cells for each task: a start date and a finish date. DO NOT
put 5/29-6/2 into one
cell.

Then simply subtract the starting cell from the ending cell, and add 1 to
get the duration in days.

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP


"chad" wrote in message
...
microsoft office professional 2003

i have a project schedule consisting of serveral tasks with different
durations for each task. i need to format one cell to show a start and
finsish date for each task and a final cell showing the total duration
for
all tasks.

task 1 task 2 task 3 total duraction

5/29-6/2 6/3-6/10 6/11-6/12 ?????


thanks