New to excel-feel really stupid

M

macosta1

When I type in a date in a cell, it gives me a five digit number that
doesn't relate to the date. What have I done? Also, I want the $ sign
to appear in the cells but it won't.
 
A

Andy B

Hi

This will be Excel's interpretation of the date (which will be the number of
days since 01/01/1900). I'm guessing that the cell was already formatted as
a number and therefore would not show your entry as a date. Just go to
Format / Cells / Number and select a date format to suit.
 
C

Chip Pearson

Format the cell as a date. The 5 digit number you see is most
likely the date serial number (days since 0-Jan-1900), which is
how Excel stores dates internally.


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
 
F

Frank Kabel

Hi
for the first question goto 'Format - Cells' and choose a date format
(you see the numerivcal representation of a date)
 
K

Ken Wright

The following link to Chip Pearson's site will give you all you will probably
want to know about dates and times in Excel. The text below is a snapshot of
part of the page

http://cpearson.com/excel/datetime.htm

How Excel Stores Dates And Times

Excel stores dates and times as a number representing the number of days since
1900-Jan-0, plus a fractional portion of a 24 hour day: ddddd.tttttt . This is
called a serial date, or serial date-time.

Dates
The integer portion of the number, ddddd, represents the number of days since
1900-Jan-0. For example, the date 29-Jan-2000 is stored as 36,544, since 36,544
days have passed since 1900-Jan-0. The number 1 represents 1900-Jan-1. It
should be noted that the number 0 does not represent 1899-Dec-31. It does not.
If you use the MONTH function with the date 0, it will return January, not
December. Moreover, the YEAR function will return 1900, not 1899.
 
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