Subtracting dates in Excel 2000

[MMinardi]

I am trying to subtract dates in Excel 2000 in the following format; year-month-day. Ex. from the beginning of the year till today would be 104th day, but when I try to subtract 20120413 from 20120101 the result is 312...........incorrect! For the form I am dealing with, I cannot change the date formatting to more common format. Any suggestions?

[daddylonglegs]

If the earlier date is in A1 and the later in A2 try this formula to get the day number

=TEXT(A2,"0000-00-00")-TEXT(A1,"0000-00-00")+1