If you format the column that holds the date as a date format then it will
appear as 02/19/10 or how ever you formatted it.
Otherwise excel assumes it is a general format item. That's all that I could
see.

"SeanF74" wrote:

The date default when you put in 2/19 is 19-Feb. I find this incredibly
annoying because I never want the date in that format. I would prefer that
it appear as 2/19/10 (or whatever the current year is). I have found that if
I put in 2/19/10, it comes out in that format, but I don't always type the
date in in that format. Is there any way to change the default setting in
Excel to this format across all my spreadsheets? Or do I have to change the
date format each time I type in a date?

Thanks,