The syntax here follows Zoho Sheet’s currently published English function help, checked October 11, 2026. Those articles do not publish a per-function introduction version, desktop/mobile support matrix, or guarantee of identical historical behavior. Zoho’s September 2026 What’s New says the Windows and macOS beta desktop apps support Excel’s native formula syntax by default for offline files. As a result, separator punctuation and behavior must be checked in the actual web or desktop editor: this tutorial shows semicolons exactly as in the official Zoho function article, and does not silently equate them with comma-delimited Excel formulas.

Zoho’s spreadsheet locale settings control date display, date interpretation, and time zone, among other items. The intended results below are calendar dates or integers; a date that displays differently after import is not necessarily a different calculated date.

Create a new sheet with these headers: A1 Event, B1 Year, C1 Month, D1 Day, E1 Event date. Enter the six data rows below. The dates shown in column E are expected date displays, not date-text strings you should paste.

In E2, enter =DATE(B2;C2;D2) using the vendor-reference punctuation and fill the formula down through E7. Then format E2:E7 as dates (for example, ISO-style YYYY-MM-DD). Depending on locale, the visible representation may differ without changing the underlying date. If CSV is easier, use the attached date-components-practice.csv for columns A:D, and build E2:E7 with DATE after import. This is important because imported ISO-looking strings are not guaranteed to be parsed as true dates.

Use the E-column date values, rather than manually typing ambiguous strings like 03/04/2024, in the formulas that follow. For a quick single-cell check independent of a dataset, nest DATE(2024;2;29) inside the function.

With the E2:E7 example dates, set F2 to =WEEKDAY(E2;2) and fill down. Using type 2 (Monday=1), expected F2:F7 results are 4, 3, 7, 7, 4, 1. A value of 7 signals Sunday in this chosen numbering scheme; 6 signals Saturday.

Use a single return type consistently across your whole workbook. Comparing values from type 1 with type 2 can produce incorrect weekend flags.

Flag calendar weekends:

=IF(WEEKDAY(E4;2)>5;"Weekend";"Weekday")

For E4=2026-10-11 (Sunday), the answer is Weekend. For E2=2024-02-29 (Thursday), the same formula with E2 instead of E4 yields Weekday. Fill the formula down a status column to identify Saturday/Sunday records; it does not account for public holidays, organization-specific weekends or local business schedules.

Variant: If you use WEEKDAY(E4;1), Sunday is 1, so >5 is not a safe weekend test. That trap is why ;2 is explicit throughout the examples.

• Return type matters: Default type 1 starts Sunday at 1; WEEKDAY(date;2) starts Monday at 1; WEEKDAY(date;3) starts Monday at 0.
• Documented return types: Zoho lists only 1, 2 and 3. Microsoft Excel documents 11–17 in addition; do not claim Zoho accepts those values without native verification.
• Weekday is not a workday calendar: national holidays, roster shifts and regional weekends require additional information.
• Invalid/misparsed date: Text that resembles a date may be interpreted differently by locale or cause #VALUE!; use DATE(year;month;day) to debug.
• #NAME!/#REF!: Check function spelling and whether source cells moved or were deleted.
• Wrong weekend flag: Check whether the workbook uses type 1 or 2 before comparing the result with 5.

Excel: Microsoft’s documentation supports WEEKDAY(serial_number,[return_type]) with additional return types 11–17. Zoho’s referenced documentation specifies only 1–3; those extra codes are an unverified compatibility gap in Zoho. Excel commonly illustrates comma-separated arguments and may use a different date serial setup. Google Sheets/LibreOffice Calc: verify return-type support, locale and date parsing separately instead of assuming all Excel-supported type codes exist. Zoho September 2026 desktop beta: new offline Excel-native formula syntax is reported, but that is not proof of runtime compatibility for extra WEEKDAY modes.

• DATE in Zoho Sheet
• YEAR in Zoho Sheet
• MONTH in Zoho Sheet
• DAY in Zoho Sheet
• WEEKDAY in Zoho Sheet
• IF in Zoho Sheet

• Zoho Sheet — function documentation
• spreadsheet locale and calculation settings

Verification status: Official documentation checked; example outcomes were independently reasoned or arithmetically checked where applicable. Not executed in Zoho Sheet.

• No genuine Zoho Sheet screenshots are included; this guide does not use mock application images.