Excel date picker: insert an excel date picker calendar into a workbook (excel 64 bit version)

hi guys and welcome back to bite size excel a while ago i did a video on how to add a day picker into your workbook using a little add-in from microsoft now in that video i was using office 365 but one thing that i didn't mention is that i was using a 32-bit version of that software now the problem with the day picker that i added in is that it only works in the 32-bit version so if you have a 64-bit version of excel you'll find that this method won't work now since making that video i've got a new computer that now runs a 64-bit version of excel 2021 and in this version of course the date picker that i used previously can't be added in so if you really want to have a date picker in your workbook what are the alternatives because unfortunately microsoft hasn't got its own date picker that works in the 64-bit version of excel but if you really do want a picker there are some add-ins that might help to get these you first have to make sure you have this developer tab enabled and to do this as a quick reminder we go to file come down to options then go to customize ribbon and on this menu here on the right hand side you just need to make sure that developer is checked and then click ok then when you go to your developer tab what you want to look for is this add-ins button here and what you'll get is you'll get a little window opening up which has my add-ins so this is ones that you have previously loaded and you've got your store so if we click on store and then in my search box i'm just going to search for date now i've not tested many of these but there are some date and counter pickers in here the one i have briefly tested is this mini calendar and date picker at the top so what you have to do is click add and then continue and then it will add in a calendar for you if you want to add another one or add it into a new workbook when you go back to add-ins this should then appear in your my add-ins section but essentially what it gives you it gives you a little calendar and you can scroll through your various months and what it does is when you select a cell and it can be any cell in your workbook and click on a particular date it will add in that date so you can see here we've added in the 16th if i were to click the cell below i want to click the 22nd and then you can add in your dates as you see fit so this adding calendar isn't linked to a particular cell but it can sit in your workbook and as long as you've clicked on the cell where you want to input a date you can scroll through and click on your date to add it in there's a few options down the up down the bottom such as toggling the calendar sides so you can make it either smaller or bigger the second option changes the calendar theme so you can flick through a couple of different colors and styles so i'm going to go with this green one because it's highlights my weekend in a fairly clear green color the next option is to change the way your counter looks so whether you're showing the week from sunday to saturday or monday to sunday so you can click through a few different options here gives a little short description down the bottom so we find back the one we have at the very beginning this fourth option adds in a column to the left which shows you the week of the year that each week is so you can switch that on or off and then this final option here is basically if you want to highlight a range of dates select this i've got my range of dates so at the moment it's just looking at m7 but i can select m7 through to m10 and click ok and what it will do is we'll highlight those dates in that list so if you had a big long list of dates and you wanted to highlight them in your calendar you could use this option here the last button just hides my settings to get them back i click on this little cog the calendar also gives you an option to add in the current time so if you click on this little time here it will add in the time that it is now so while this is a slightly different type of calendar to the one we looked at in my first video which was essentially linked to a single cell and gave you a little drop down where the calendar will pop up you may need to set this up in your workbook in a way that makes sense for how you want to use it there are some other add-ins if we go back to our store and click date now i've not really tested these but if you have used any of them if you find them particularly useful i'd love to hear about it in a comment so do let me know your thoughts on this type of calendar picker in excel do you find it useful i'd personally love it if microsoft had a way of adding in a date picker into your workbook that worked in all versions of excel sadly there aren't too many options for a day picker within excel itself without creating your own vba or downloading some external add-ins however depending on what you want remember there are also some shortcuts to add in the current date and time such as holding down control and semicolon to add in the current date so if what you're wanting from your workbook is to simply add in the date we're on now this might be a quick and easy alternative as always i hope that you found this video useful i'd also love to hear your thoughts for future videos remember to like and subscribe and i do look forward to seeing you in a future video you