"Frustrated" wrote in message
...
I have set up a customized date format in Excel that works with a txt file.
If would be useful to see this customized format

However, if the date is only the year, i.e. 1955, without a day or month, it
is interpreting the year as an unrelated date, i.e. 19 May 1905.
Excel stores dates as the number of days since Jan 1, 1900. When it sees 1955,
it thinks this is the number of days since then, hence the result of 19 May
1905. With a formula, you could change it to some date in that year, such as:
=if(a1<2100,date(year(a1),1,1)),a1)

The format
is customized to read the abbreviated month as the full word for the month,
but I can see I need to customize the format to accommodate just the year
entries as well.
Formats can't "read" anything in the cell. Only formulas can. Are you saying you
have a formula which translates the abbreviated month to the full month? If so,
post the formula, and the additional situation you want handled (ie, numbers
less than some year), and you'll almost certainly get an answer to your problem


Can this be done by a special format that will accommodate both types of
date entries?
Very likely, but we need an example of both types.


Any help would be appreciated, and thanks!