I created a csv file from your data and the csv file contains 10-12, not a
date.

Tyro

"cinnie" wrote in message
...
hi to all

This is simple I'm sure, but it sure is stumping this new user. I
frequently get .xls sheets that I must save as .csv format before the data
can be loaded into a database. Here's my problem:

One of the .xls columns, called Age Group, has values like...

8, under 13, 10-12, 16+, 5-7, etc...

Even though these are formatted as 'text', I run into a conversion problem
when saving as a .csv file. The 10-12, for example, insists on changing
to
the date 12-Oct. If I then try to format this as 'text', I get 39733 of
course. How can I ensure that values like 10-12 are seen as text not
dates,
even when convering to csv format?

much thanks
--
cinnie