Select the cells you want to format. Go to Format
menu/cells/number/Custom.. Pick any yy/mm/dd format and follow the
directions to overwrite with yy/mm/dd and close window. When you type
1/16/06 in a formatted cell you will read out in the cell 06/01/16 ,
but in the formula bar it will be 1/16/06. It works fine on my
EXcel2003. ed