Try Data|Validation and tell it to only accept dates.

but I typed in "december 12, 2003" in a cell and I got the date back. But I
formatted it as mm/dd/yy (under custom).



"JShrimps, Jr." wrote:

After formating a group of cells as "##/##/##",
and typing in "December 12, 2003", results in
"December 12, 2003" in the cell.
I have to limit the data entry to the "##/##/##" format only.
No text strings allowed.

"Kevin Beckham" wrote in message
...
Why would you want to do this?
Excel does not store the date in that format, but as a
decimal number and cell formatted as Date.
Just pre-set the cell format as "##/##/##" and it won't
matter what they type, it will display the short format.

Kevin Beckham

-----Original Message-----
Need to format some columns in ShortDate format only
so that the only values accepted are in "##/##/##" format.

If someone types in Dec. 10, 2003, for example, an error
should
be genereated, and the user is reminded to enter
dates in "##/##/##" format.


.


--

Dave Peterson