At work we deal with certain products and their traditional naming structure
consists of:

000/00a-a00a

Although not all of those values may be present, i.e.:

18/1a-1z

211/13-p12

These identifiers pre-date the existence of Microsoft, let alone Windows and
Office, so it's not like we can go back and change these identifiers,
especially as they're controlled by an external third-party.

The problem is that Excel will sometimes "recognise" these identifiers as
possible dates and convert them, when pasting from other sources and so on;
is there any way to stop Excel from doing this automatic correction, as it
becomes extremely time consuming when dealing with large lists?

Whoops, knew I was forgetting something! This is specific to Excel 2003, at
present, I'm not aware of any plans to upgrade to 2007.

"YenRug" wrote:

At work we deal with certain products and their traditional naming structure
consists of:

000/00a-a00a

Although not all of those values may be present, i.e.:

18/1a-1z

211/13-p12

These identifiers pre-date the existence of Microsoft, let alone Windows and
Office, so it's not like we can go back and change these identifiers,
especially as they're controlled by an external third-party.

The problem is that Excel will sometimes "recognise" these identifiers as
possible dates and convert them, when pasting from other sources and so on;
is there any way to stop Excel from doing this automatic correction, as it
becomes extremely time consuming when dealing with large lists?

YenRug,

Try formatting the cells as Text prior to using paste-special / values...

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP


"YenRug" wrote in message
...
At work we deal with certain products and their traditional naming structure
consists of:

000/00a-a00a

Although not all of those values may be present, i.e.:

18/1a-1z

211/13-p12

These identifiers pre-date the existence of Microsoft, let alone Windows and
Office, so it's not like we can go back and change these identifiers,
especially as they're controlled by an external third-party.

The problem is that Excel will sometimes "recognise" these identifiers as
possible dates and convert them, when pasting from other sources and so on;
is there any way to stop Excel from doing this automatic correction, as it
becomes extremely time consuming when dealing with large lists?