hi
the number you see is the way excel keeps dates. the number is the serial
date number. a date formated as general will show this number. to correct,
just format the serial number as date.
also.... see these sites for more info on date keeping systems that excel
uses.
there are 2.
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/datetime.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214330

regards
FSt1

"Don" wrote:

I get a file that has a date but it gives it to me as a number like 1/15/2009
would be 11509 in the cell. Is there a way to take that value and format it
to know it is a date either by having another cell help format it? Note that
if the date is like 1/08/09 then the number would be 10809...