check the one of those cells and clik format and see in what format the cell
is?
was that offendig column already in number format. In that case when you
enter a date it
automatically converts to number
I dont want to guess too much. I am not an expert but I have done similar
mistakes and got out of it after much trial and error. . if you have no
objection you can send a small portion of your spreadsheet including the
"cultprit"column by email as attachment to me and we shall see what we
together can do.


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Eve wrote in message
...
Okay, I tried that in a blank worksheet and it worked but when I tried
that
same formula in the worksheet that I'm having problems with, it only
showed
the actual formula (even after I tried to format it to the date). I guess
the difference was in the blank worksheet, the number was only the number
but
in this worksheet, the number is actually corresponding to a date. What I
don't understand is how in the heck did my dates change to those
corresponding numbers? Each date has its own specific number. In other
words, all dates of 7/1/05 have the number 38534 and all dates of 7/19/05
have the number 38552, etc. When my curser is on a cell that had a date
in
it, it will show the accurate date in the fx or function line at the top
of
the screen but in the actual cell itself, it shows only the 5 digit
number.
From the beginning, I had always entered the data in date format. Any
other
suggestions?

Also, I looked for

"R.VENKATARAMAN" wrote:

this is only a guess
probably the cell was formatted as text. is the number on the leftside
of
the cell or on the right cell.

try this . hope you succeed
suppose the no.(?)(for e.g. 38548) is in cell a1 but in text format
in some other cell type
=A1+0
then in the new cell the number will be in number format
now format this as date
you can then manouver

try this in some other NEW sheet ALSO then you will know whether your
sheet
is protected or not


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==============================
Eve wrote in message
...
I have been trying that and it doesn't work. The 5 digit numbers just
remain
there even though I choose the format for those cells to show the date
with
format of mm/dd/yy. It's like I somehow locked it or protected it and
I
can't undo it. Any other advice?

"R.VENKATARAMAN" wrote:

select the cell and in menu bar
format-cells-number- dates
choose any format you want.
including mm/dd/yyyy

mine excel 2000
=====================


Eve wrote in message
...
Somehow I accidentally hit a key(s) and caused my dates in one
column
of
my
worksheet to convert to corresponding 5 digit numbers. Each date
has
its
own
unique number (i.e. 7/1/2005 now reads 38534). I want to change
it
back
so
that is actually displays the dates. How do I do that?

I'm using MS Office Excel 2003 running on XP.

Thanks.