It depends which format you have your text strings, but it may be worth
trying Data/ Text to Columns/ and at the final stage of the Wizard specify
the format of the date from which you are starting (e.g. DMY).

If you've got additional characters such as extra spaces, commas, etc., then
you may find you need to remove them before they will be accepted as dates.
--
David Biddulph

"via135" wrote in message
...
i'm having a1:a10 dates. but when i check it out whether they are real
dates by using datevalue function thru b1:b10 some of them giving
#value errors. how can i convert all of them to real dates?

-via135