Assuming that your number is in cell A1, this formula will return a date:

=DATE(LEFT(A1,4),MID(A1,5,2),(RIGHT(A1,2)))

"DJ" wrote:

I have been given an Excel spreadsheet with numbers in 8-digit text format.
For example, 20020812 would be August 12, 2002. How do I convert these to
some sort of date field that will allow me to perform calculations (count
days from one date to the next)?