I am really sick of excel turning everything that might look like a date into
one

Please make it easy to figure out how to turn it or every autoformatting
thing off completely until user turns it back on or hits a reset. I spent 2
hours searching all the help on Microsoft only to be told how to change how
the date appeared, when i change the jan-1 back into a "general number" i
dont get 1-1, i get 38594 or something. When I re-enter "1-1" after
supposedly formating it to "general" it turns right back in to a date again.

How do i turn the autocorrecting of scores (1-1) into dates (Jan-1) off???

----------------
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Pre-format the cells as Text or preface your score with an apostrophe.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP


On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 19:14:01 -0700, No help <No
wrote:

I am really sick of excel turning everything that might look like a date into
one

Please make it easy to figure out how to turn it or every autoformatting
thing off completely until user turns it back on or hits a reset. I spent 2
hours searching all the help on Microsoft only to be told how to change how
the date appeared, when i change the jan-1 back into a "general number" i
dont get 1-1, i get 38594 or something. When I re-enter "1-1" after
supposedly formating it to "general" it turns right back in to a date again.

How do i turn the autocorrecting of scores (1-1) into dates (Jan-1) off???

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...lic.excel.misc

format the cell(s) as text or precede the 1-1 with a ' as in '1-1

"No help" wrote:

I am really sick of excel turning everything that might look like a date into
one

Please make it easy to figure out how to turn it or every autoformatting
thing off completely until user turns it back on or hits a reset. I spent 2
hours searching all the help on Microsoft only to be told how to change how
the date appeared, when i change the jan-1 back into a "general number" i
dont get 1-1, i get 38594 or something. When I re-enter "1-1" after
supposedly formating it to "general" it turns right back in to a date again.

How do i turn the autocorrecting of scores (1-1) into dates (Jan-1) off???

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...lic.excel.misc

There are two replies with the correct answer.

But the clue to this is to think about the data you have before you type
it in.

1-1 is not a number, yes it might be annoying that it gets treated as a
date.
But it's just plain text so enter it as such '1-1

More people are grateful that dates are easy to type in - it really would
be a pain
for everybody if every date for this year had to be typed in full
1/2/2006 ! just 1/2 or 1-2 is a lot quicker.

General format is a basic style for numbers ie no currency or commas,
fixed decimals etc etc

Steve

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 03:14:01 +0100, No help <No
wrote:

I am really sick of excel turning everything that might look like a date
into
one

Please make it easy to figure out how to turn it or every autoformatting
thing off completely until user turns it back on or hits a reset. I
spent 2
hours searching all the help on Microsoft only to be told how to change
how
the date appeared, when i change the jan-1 back into a "general number" i
dont get 1-1, i get 38594 or something. When I re-enter "1-1" after
supposedly formating it to "general" it turns right back in to a date
again.

How do i turn the autocorrecting of scores (1-1) into dates (Jan-1)
off???

Thanks - very helpful right away!

"SteveW" wrote:

There are two replies with the correct answer.

But the clue to this is to think about the data you have before you type
it in.

1-1 is not a number, yes it might be annoying that it gets treated as a
date.
But it's just plain text so enter it as such '1-1

More people are grateful that dates are easy to type in - it really would
be a pain
for everybody if every date for this year had to be typed in full
1/2/2006 ! just 1/2 or 1-2 is a lot quicker.

General format is a basic style for numbers ie no currency or commas,
fixed decimals etc etc

Steve

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 03:14:01 +0100, No help <No
wrote:

I am really sick of excel turning everything that might look like a date
into
one

Please make it easy to figure out how to turn it or every autoformatting
thing off completely until user turns it back on or hits a reset. I
spent 2
hours searching all the help on Microsoft only to be told how to change
how
the date appeared, when i change the jan-1 back into a "general number" i
dont get 1-1, i get 38594 or something. When I re-enter "1-1" after
supposedly formating it to "general" it turns right back in to a date
again.

How do i turn the autocorrecting of scores (1-1) into dates (Jan-1)
off???