If you enter 1-2005, Excel assumes Jan 1, 2005 and returns Jan-05, hence, it
treats 1-4351 as Jan 1, 4351 and returns Jan-51

I agree, it doesn't look like a date to you and me... but Excel often
doesn't think like you and me! Ironically, if you enter 1-1899 it returns a
text entry "1-1899"; as numbers prior to 1900 are not treated as dates!

Cheers!

Bruce

"Myrna Larson" wrote:

Excel is programmed to auto interpret numbers that look like date values as
Dates.

True, but 1-4531 and 2-4531 don't "look like" dates to me. How would you
describe the format?


In Excel office 2k if you type 1-4351 in any cell the returned value is
Jan-51, 2-4531 =Feb-51 etc.