Disable automatic date conversion feature

[iceseal]

Hi there-

I'm using Excel, Microsoft Office 2000 version. Many of the numerical
values entered into cells are being automatically converted into
day/month/year form.
Is there any way to prevent these input values from being converted into
dates, or to simply disable this function?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
either precede the entries with an apostrophe: 'entry
or preformat the cell as 'Text'

 

[David McRitchie]

The types of things that get converted to dates include either
hyphens or slashes as dates have.

If you have a number and it is being converted to a date then
that means it has a slash and is a fraction without a whole number.

If you have 1/8 for instance Excel will interpret that as a date,
so you might have to enter as 0 1/8 to keep it as a number.

If you have hyphens or dashes with a number than it probably isn't
really a number but an ID and should be formatted as text before
entry, or preceded with an single quote during entry, so that it will
be text.. ID's are not used numerically. A US social security
"number" is really an ID, a credit card "number" is really an ID not
a number.

When you have a problem, please include an example of what
you are actually having a problem with. It reduces the speculation
and gives you a better chance of getting an answer you can use
without a lot of extra questions beings asked.

You indicated that you are entering the numbers, but another way
getting data into Excel is by pasting, and importing data. Just made
an addition to a page in that regard today. Don't think that is your
problem but others doing searches might see your thread and be
looking for answers along those lines.
. http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/paste.htm