For your date problem, enter an apostrophe (') before the data.
The apostrophe will not show in the cell, but will in the formula
bar.

For your time question, times are stored internally as a fraction
of a 24-hour day (e.g., 0.25 = 6:00, 0.5 = 12:00, 0.75 = 18:00,
etc), so you can add them as normal numbers. Format the result
cell as [h]:mm:ss.




--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com


"stevekfbc" wrote in
message
...
When I enter "Jan 03" meaning the month of January 2003, the
program
automatically enters 3-Jan and assumes I mean January 3, 2006.
I have
changed the number format of the entire column to General and
have even tried
changing it to the date format "Mar 01" to no avail. How do I
prohibit Excel
from ASSUMING what I want to enter and just let me enter what I
want?

Also, is there any way for excel to calculate times, like 22
minutes 15
seconds plus 8 minutes 12 seconds?