I have experimented.

In A1, a date 1/10/2008 was entered. I am Canadian so this is 1-Oct-2008
If I format is as dd-mmm-yy I see 1-Oct-2008

From the URL I sent you, I learnt that Germany's code is 407
If I format A1 with [$-407] dd-mmm-yy, then I se 1-Okt-08

The English(UK) code is 809 so if I use [$-809] dd-mmm-yy I see 1-Oct-08
My bet is that if I sent this to a Norwegian user she would see 1-Oct-08

Please try it and let us know the result
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
http://people.stfx.ca/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Libby" wrote in message
...
Hello,

I have on a spreadsheet a column for dates. The dates are entered in the
format dd/mmm/yyyy and then the cell formatting changes them to mmm-yy.

This works fine for all UK users, but it all goes pear shaped when people
abroad add dates. In this case the format of the cell is overridden with
another format and foreign spelling.
For example, if I entered 12/oct/2008 in the UK, the cell would display
Oct-08. However when a Dutch person does it for the same date 12-Okt-2008
is
displayed.

Not only is the formatting wrong, but the word Okt instead of Oct is
present. I have a macro which used the "Oct" part to count the number of
entries per month and this issue is messing it up.

Is there any way to force the dates into UK format?

Thanks in advance