Date format

[Dee]

I have a spreadsheet where I want to format the cells as dates. However, I
need to paste dates from a word document into the cells. When I do this, the
dates do not show up as the way I formatted them. Even if I apply the date
format, the correct one does not show. Is there a way to format the pasted
cells to show the correct format?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[Max]

One way to try out ..

Assuming you have pasted the "dates" into col A

Select col A
Data > Text to columns
Click Next > Next to go to step 3 of the wizard
In step3:
Check "Date" under "Column data format",
then choose the *correct* selection from the droplist
(MDY, DMY, YMD ...)
Click Finish

 

[Fred Smith]

Your problem is that, after pasting from Word, your cell has text in it, not
dates. All attempts to format text are ignored by Excel. To convert text to
usable numbers or dates, there are several techniques, mostly involving
forcing Excel to do arithmetic on the text:

1. =--a1 (converts '10' to -10, then +10, but now it's a number, not text)
2. =a1+0
3. Enter 0 in a cell, copy it, use Paste Special on the destination cell
(a1), and choose Add
4. Use Data>Text to Columns

Most people use #3 because it's the only one which doesn't involve the
creation of new cells.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I use a variation of #3.

I copy an empty cell and paste special|Add with that.

Then the empty cells in my pasted range aren't changed to 0.