Try =DATEVALUE(SUBSTITUTE(A1,".","/")); this worked for me, I had to format
the cell to data otherwise it displayed the date serial number.
If your system is set to use dots for dates try =DATEVALUE(A1)
best wishes

--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Dimmer" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

I hope you can help with a problem we have in the office. We've got over
4,500 observations which are supposed to be in Date Format. Instead they
are
in text format, e.g. "01.06.2005 08:26" or just "09.03.2005" but we need
to
perform various duration calculations on them, so we need them in the Date
Format

I tried Format Cells- Category = Date, but it doesn't work. It works
however when I enter the cell and then click "Enter". very strange

Please help if you have an idea how to do it...

Thank you very much