Just to add to Bernard's post...

Saved from a previous post:

One workbook was using a base year of 1900 and the other was using 1904.
(tools|options|calculation tab|1904 date system)

One way to add those four years back is to find an empty cell, put 1462 into
that cell.

Copy that cell.

Select your range that contains the dates. Edit|PasteSpecial|click Add (in the
operation box).

You may have to reformat the cell as a date (mine turned to a 5 digit number).
But it should work.

You may want to do it against a copy...just in case.

(I'm not sure which one you'll fix. You may want to edit|pastespecial|click
subtract.)

Most windows users use 1900 as the base date. Mac users (mostly??) use 1904 as
the base date.




KR wrote:

Situation:

Workbook was created in Excel 2003 (PC) and forwarded to another person who
opened it with another PC using either Excel 2000 or 2003 (unconfirmed which
version). The dates showed up as about 4 years off. My first thought? Maybe
the machine was set with a different system clock. But here is where it gets
weird;

the receipient returned the workbook via email, and the wrong dates still
show up even on the originator's PC. When he enters new dates, they show up
as correct, but the cells that had the original dates (or anywhere they are
cut/paste from those original cells, including into new workbooks) still
show up as wrong. Checking the cell value (days since seed date) the cells
are identical, but in cells right next to each other, show as different
dates (when formatted as date).

I was unable to find anything in cell format that would cause the difference
(we made sure it was straight date format, and not the ones with the
asterisks).

The fact that the dates are about 4 years off (taking into account leap
year, it probably matches up exactly) makes me think of the Macintosh seed
date being 1904 instead of 1900...but no-one here uses a mac, and if the
date was actually based on the machine date, I would think that the numbers
would still match up within a PC, and certainly within a worksheet.

Has anyone else come across this? Any idea what would cause it, so we can
ensure it doesn't happen again?

Thanks,
Keith

--
The enclosed questions or comments are entirely mine and don't represent the
thoughts, views, or policy of my employer. Any errors or omissions are my
own.

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Dave Peterson