Sorry not to get back earlier, Dave. I've now opened Excel in safe mode as
you suggested and the problem still exists, whether working in a new
spreadsheet or an existing one. In the new spreadsheet, the date format
does not work regardless of whether the cells are formatted before or after
the data are entered.
I opened an existing spreadsheet that has not been used recently. When I
amended a formatted date (and did nothing else), the formatting was lost,
ie, existing formulae using that date returned '#VALUE!'. This happens even
if I amend the cell only by retyping the date that was already there.
As you can imagine, this is seriously bugging me. Does anyone have any
other suggestions?
I've just tried opening some of the same files from a networked Windows XP
and the problem does *not* exist. Sounds to me like it's something to do
with Windows Vista -- are there any known problems with Vista and Excel
2000? I know that Excel 2000 is no longer supported by Microsoft, but I
checked before I started using Excel 2000, and all the advice I got was that
there should be no problems. Help!!??
--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
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"Dave Peterson" wrote in message
...
I'm out of ideas.
If you start excel in safe mode
close excel
windows start button|Run
type:
excel /safe
and test those suggestions, do they work?
Lindsay Graham wrote:
No, Dave, retyping does not help, I'm afraid.
It's a brand new spreadsheet, and there's definitely nothing else in the
cells.
I remain totally stumped!!
--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
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"Dave Peterson" wrote in message
...
And retyping the date didn't help???
If that helps, then you may have other stuff in those cells--maybe
white
space
(those HMTL non-breaking spaces???).
Lindsay Graham wrote:
An additional point that may help someone resolve my problem.
With cells where I have entered a date but have not tried to apply any
format, the format (R click on the cell Format Cells... Number
tab)
appears as General (ie, no specific number format).
With cells where I have applied a format, it appears as, for example,
'Custom' 'd/m/y_)'. Although this is what would be expected, the date
format is not present -- the cell cannot be used in formulae and will
not
sort correctly as a date.
Does this suggest anything to anyone?
--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
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"Lindsay Graham" wrote in message
...
Thank you, Dave, Gord and Shane. I'm sure you're right and the
cells
are
formatted as text. However, I've tried each method that you have
suggested, and nothing helps. The date formatting is still not
applied.
My preferred custom format is 'd/m/yy_)' but I've tried several
standard
date formats as well. I'm really stumped.
Any other ideas out there?
--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
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"Shane Devenshire" wrote in message
...
Hi Lindsay,
I assume as have others that the dates are really text - so
1. Click an empty cell and choose Copy
2. Select all the date cell and choose Edit, Paste Special, Add
3. Then apply a date formatting of your choosing.
Cheers,
Shane Devenshire
Microsoft Excel MVP
Join http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ and download a free
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"Lindsay Graham" wrote in message
...
I'm using Excel 2000 on a Vista desktop and on an XP laptop. I'm
finding that cell formatting will not work any more. For example,
if
I
try to apply date or custom date formatting to a cell containing
'8/6/08', the cell is not formatted as a date. The only possible
thing
that I can think of is that I was trialling OpenOffice and
initially
I
thought that the problem was limited to Excel files that I had
opened
in
OpenOffice. But I'm now finding that the problem exists in new
files
created in Excel that have never been opened in OpenOffice.
Can anyone help? I've never had this problem before.
--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that all may benefit.
--
Dave Peterson
--
Dave Peterson