format the cell as text first or put a ' in front of the data, the ' want
show

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Paul B
Always backup your data before trying something new
Please post any response to the newsgroups so others can benefit from it
Feedback on answers is always appreciated!
Using Excel 2002 & 2003

"johnson5" wrote in message
...
I need to enter data into excel and have it remain in "general" format
rather
than have it become a date (eg when i enter 3/1952 it becomes 3 march
1952)
this happens with any viable number that can conceivably be interpreted as
a
date (5/2500 also becomes a date!). How can i force the cell to maintain
the
format?