Depending upon your Windows Regional and Language Settings, Excel could be
interpreting those dates as year 1909 and not 2009 which would give you
those strange 4-digit numbers.

If Excel was interpreting 09 as 2009 you would get 5-digit numbers when
cells are formatted to General.

01/05/2009 would be 39818 or 39934 depending upon short date settings.

Format the cells on destination sheet as Date and see what date you get.

The 0/01/1900 is the date a blank cell would return when formatted as Date.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:51:01 -0700, Lise
wrote:

Hi

I have two worksheets in one I am asking it to copy what is in the other on
a specific cell. The first worksheet has dates and blank cells when the
second sheet copies it changes the date format to a strange numbering and
where it should be blank makes up a date - I have also tried requestein if
blanl levae blank otherwise copy and still no good

Example
Sheet one Sheet two
01/05/09 4568
0/01/1900
15/07/09 3576

The two formulas used in sheet two have been
='05th August Issues'!M2

and

=IF('05th August Issues'!M2="","",M2)

Thanks

Lise