That doesn't change the underlying value of the cell. It's not a date it's
still the same number just with the slashes.

turn a number such as "51319" into a date such as "5/13/19".

Ok, so what year is that? Is it 1919 or 2019?

Try this...

Select the cell in question
Goto the menu DataText to Columns
Click Next twice
In Step 3 of the wizard, in Column data format, select Date and select MDY
from the frop down.
Click Finish

Excel will interpret the year 19 as 2019

Then you can custom format as desired.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Eduardo" wrote in message
...
Hi,
Custom format and enter

0"/"00"/"00

"Kbass" wrote:

I would like to know how to turn a number such as "51319" into a date
such as
"5/13/19". As of now, when I try to format the cell to a date format, it
completely changes the date from "52309" to a random date such as
"7/11/35".
I have no idea why. Any ideas?