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Default How to keep "text" number from changing to date....

Hi

Before you paste the data, format the column as Text. Once you have done
this, you can use Paste Special / Values.

Hope this helps.
Andy.

"Julie Willems" <Julie wrote in message
...
I have copied and pasted numbers from a source on the internet into a
column.
Some appear to be formatted as numbers, some are formatted as text. When I
reformat using Data and Text to Columns to organize them and get rid of
extra
spaces, any multiple numbers less than 31 with a dash in between them
change
to dates, and then if I reformat cells to text it changes the dates to a
five
digit number. Here is one example... 4-27 changes to Apr 27, then to
38824.

I have thousands of these. I've been entering '4-27 to keep the number as
text. This takes forever. There must be an easier way to do the entire
column. Please help.