how to put date slashes in to a column of number

B

bluebean

hi all,

I have a spreadsheet which has two colums full of numbers, they are
dates but just written as numbers i.e. 20050923 for today's date. How
can I change them so that they show up as 2005/09/23? I've tried to
customize them but it won't work.
thanks!
 
M

moondark

try the following:

In the format/Cells menu you can enter user defined formats.

Excel won't accept slashes in user defined format so you have to mark
as special character by adding a backslash in front of. Just like
this:

####\/##\/##

# stands for a variable digit


if doesn't work, try to declare / as text by adding double quotes
(####"/"##"/"##)

good luck ;),
Simon
 
D

Dave Peterson

If you really want those values to be dates, you can do this for each column.

select the column
data|text to columns
fixed width (remove any lines that excel guessed)
choose ymd as that field format
finish up the wizard
format that column the way you want

and do the second column.

Numbers that look like dates are usually more confusing than they're worth.
 
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