Problem entering dashes in certain spots

[WorkingHardly]

I have a problem where sometimes when I try to enter a number in the format:
1-4-1 in a cell, it automatically enters different number such as 35639. I
cannot find any hidden formulas, or conditions, and it doesn't happen in
every cell.Anyone have any ideas about what could be causing this?

 

[BoniM]

Excel thinks you are entering dates and is converting to the serial number
for that date. 35639 is 7/28/1997 for example.
36895 would display for a cell where you typed 1-4-1 and excel coverted to a
date.

Format the cells as text before you enter, to stop it from happening
or you can begin the cell entry with an apostrophe:
'1-4-1
which is just another way to format a cell as text. The apostrophe will not
display in the cell.

 

[Ron Coderre]

Excel is...ahem..."helping". It assumes you intended to enter a date, so it
converts your date-like input to an Excel date-serial number.

To Excel, each date is represented by the number of days the date is after
31-DEC-1899.
For example:
01-JAN-1900 is date-serial 1
11-MAR-2008 is date-serial 39,518

To avoid the conversion:
1) Enter an apostrophe (') before the entered value: '1-4-1
or
2) Format the input cells as TEXT
From the Excel Main Menu:
<format><cells><number tab>
Category: Text

Does that help?
Post back if you have more questions.
--------------------------

Regards,

Ron
Microsoft MVP (Excel)
(XL2003, Win XP)

 

[David Biddulph]

Excel has translated your 1-4-1 to a date of 1/4/2001 (which it stores as
36982 or 36895, depending on whether it interprets it as 1st April or 4th
January). If you want to keep the data as 1-4-1, either format the cell as
text before you type the data in, or prefix the data with an apostrophe.

 

[WorkingHardly]

That worked guys, thanks for all your help on this. I cannot tell you how
annoying that was. Thanks!