Dates in Excel are stored as serial numbers. Dec 31, 2007 is acutally stored
as the serial number 39447. Cell formatting may cause the serial number to
display as 12-31-2007, but the actual value of the cell is still 39447.

So, when your IF statement compares A1 to "12-31-2007", Excel compares the
serial number 39447 to the text string "12-31-2007" which obviously aren't
the same.

Try one of these formulas:

=IF(A1=DATE(2007,12,31),"2007","No")

or

=IF(TEXT(A1,"mm-dd-yyyy")="12-31-2007","2007","No")

The first option compares A1 to the serial number returned by the DATE
function. The second option converts A1 to a text string and then compares
to the text string "12-31-2007". Either way, this allows you to compare
apples to apples, instead of apples to oranges.

HTH,
Elkar


"kanstrup" wrote:

Hello,
I have a formula here and I don't understand why it doesn't work. The
situation is such. I have a cell A1 that has a specfic date in it. If this
cell is an exact date that I deem as true then I want it to place the year
2007. If not, then I want it to place the text no. My formula is such:

=IF(A1="12-31-2007","2007","No")

Unfortunately my formula is wrong because I continue to get a "No" answer
when the cell A1 is that exact date of 12-31-2007. When I put a "<=" into
the formula, it works. I don't understand. Can someone help?

Thanks,
Chris