Thanks for the advice. When you said the author's name, I remembered
that someone near by had that book on the shelf. I agree: it's a
great round-up of international issues.

Anyway, the author addresses this specific question and provides a
workaround: using the GET.CELL() Excel 4 marco function. He then
warns that sometimes you can get errors.

As I read the chapter, something caught my attention that made me
think of a simpler workaround: all VBA is written in American
English, regardless of the language version of Windows XP and Office
that is installed. So, I simple work a function to wrap the FORMAT
function in VBA. That way, I can guarantee that the string
representing the date will always be formatted based on regional
settings, but using American English inputs. The best of both worlds.

To all:

If you want more info on this, please send me an email
(j~~~~mere~~~~dith AT gm~~~ail.co~~~~m; delete the ~'s of course).
I'm happy to discuss this.

Thanks,
Johnny