TODAY Function
The Excel TODAY function returns the current date from the computers system clock.
The syntax for the TODAY function is:
=TODAY()
Excel stores dates as sequential numbers so that they can be used in calculations. January 1 1900 is stored as a number 1 and January 1 2010 is stored as 40179.
NOW Function
The Excel NOW function returns the current date and time. The NOW function is only updated when the spreadsheet is calculated..
The syntax for the NOW function is:
=NOW()
Excel stores the time as a number within a day. Therefore, 06:00 on January 1 2010 is stored as 40179.25. This is because 06:00 is a quarter of a day.
When using the TODAY function in a formula the result will be a whole number, when using the NOW function the result will appear as a decimal because of the time.
