The number is Excel's date storage number.

Format the cell as Date and the number will appear as a date.

See Chip Pearson's site for info on how Excel stores dates/times.

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/datetime.htm#SerialDates


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Sun, 10 Dec 2006 09:16:00 -0800, leonperrins
wrote:

I am running XP Pro+SP2 and Excel 2002.

Why do I get a number when I try to copy the date from the cell above into
my working line by hitting Ctrl + '.