" wrote:


Ken Hutchinson wrote:

I wonder if anyone can help me with this. Some of our company part
numbers are being interpreted by MS Excel as dates (ex: 2404-08-12
becomes August 12, 2404). When I work in Excel, I manage to avoid this
by formatting the cells which will contain these numbers as "text
only." It works about 90% of the time, though for some reason the
formatting does not stay permanent and I have to re-enter the data.
This isn't too big a problem for if I'm careful about formatting the
cells before I start entering data.

However, my boss is not very computer literate and he is confounded
every time this happens. He cuts and pastes the data into new
spreadsheets which aren't formatted properly and loses all of his
information because the part number he entered in has now been
converted to a serial date value, and it is almost impossible to
convert this back to the original part number he was using.

Does anyone know how to turn this off in preferences or something? I
need a way to prevent Excel form doing this, and I need it to be done
in a way that my boss can't screw up because he's cutting and pasting
data into new spreadsheets.

Hi Ken

Presumably firing your boss is not an option?

You could try preceding your parts numbers with an apostrophe (e.g.
'2404-08-12) to let Excel know that it's dealing with text.

That works if you're entering data by hand, but it doesn't work when you're
trying to cut and paste large amounts of text. Any other suggestions?

Tammy