On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:23:02 -0700, Millie
wrote:

When I type Mar 02, the formual bar show 3/1/2006. When I type Jan 04, the
formula bar shows 1/1/2006. However, if I include a DAY, as in Mar 24, 2002,
it shows in the cell as Mar-02, and in the formula bar as 3/24/2002.

So, I guess you cannot type a month and year without including a day????

Millie,

Aha!

In your first response you wrote you were typing "March 2003, April 2004,
January 2005, etc."

If you had actually typed in "March 2003" you would see in the formula bar
3/1/2003 (depending somewhat on your windows regional settings). And you would
not have to include a day.

But now you write you are typing "Mar 02, Jan 04"

Do you see the difference between "Mar 2002" and "Mar 02"?

In the first case, "2002" is unambiguously a year since March only has 31 days.

In the second case "02" is ... what? It could be a shorthand for a two digit
year with an unspecified century, or it could be the 2nd day of March with an
unspecified year.

When you type in an ambiguous date, such as Mar 02, Excel has certain rules
that it applies to decide how to interpret it.

When you enter a date that contains only two of the three date components,
Excel assumes that the date is in the form of Day/Month or Month/Year. Excel
first attempts to resolve the entry as a Day/Month entry in the current year.
If it cannot resolve the entry in the Day/Month form, Excel attempts to resolve
the entry in the Month/Year form, using the first day of that month. If it
cannot resolve the entry in the Month/Year form, Excel interprets the entry as
text.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214391/en-us for a fuller discussion and
examples.

--ron