Hello,

I'm having trouble exporting data from Excel to SPSS. I think the problem is
with the format of dates. Excel defaults to dd-mmm-yy, but I don't want to
include year in that column (it goes in a separate column, so I can sort on
year). I keep changing the format to Short Date dd-mmm, but it doesn't seem
to be working.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

buggirl

In Excel you can not have a date without a year. If you just want date and
month then you need to enter them as text.

If you have date in A1 then
=Text(A1,"m") will give you the month
and
=Text(A1,"d") will give you the date

You can use mm, mmm, mon,dd etc as the second argument.

"buggirl" wrote:

Hello,

I'm having trouble exporting data from Excel to SPSS. I think the problem is
with the format of dates. Excel defaults to dd-mmm-yy, but I don't want to
include year in that column (it goes in a separate column, so I can sort on
year). I keep changing the format to Short Date dd-mmm, but it doesn't seem
to be working.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

buggirl

Hi.
excel keeps the date all in one number. take todays date 1/6/09 and format
it to general. you'll see 39819. formating turns this number into the many
date formats we see and formating does not change data....it only changes the
way it looks.
if you want to export the date seperated into year then day and month, you
may have to split it before export.
use the text formula.
example...date in A1
=text(A1,"yyyy") for year
=text(A1,"mm/dd") for month/day
you can then copy the formulas and pastespecial as values to turn the
formula into hard data for export.

regards
FSt1
"buggirl" wrote:

Hello,

I'm having trouble exporting data from Excel to SPSS. I think the problem is
with the format of dates. Excel defaults to dd-mmm-yy, but I don't want to
include year in that column (it goes in a separate column, so I can sort on
year). I keep changing the format to Short Date dd-mmm, but it doesn't seem
to be working.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

buggirl

That's very useful - thank you both. I'll try fooling around with the text
formula.

cheers,

buggirl

"FSt1" wrote:

Hi.
excel keeps the date all in one number. take todays date 1/6/09 and format
it to general. you'll see 39819. formating turns this number into the many
date formats we see and formating does not change data....it only changes the
way it looks.
if you want to export the date seperated into year then day and month, you
may have to split it before export.
use the text formula.
example...date in A1
=text(A1,"yyyy") for year
=text(A1,"mm/dd") for month/day
you can then copy the formulas and pastespecial as values to turn the
formula into hard data for export.

regards
FSt1
"buggirl" wrote:

Hello,

I'm having trouble exporting data from Excel to SPSS. I think the problem is
with the format of dates. Excel defaults to dd-mmm-yy, but I don't want to
include year in that column (it goes in a separate column, so I can sort on
year). I keep changing the format to Short Date dd-mmm, but it doesn't seem
to be working.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

buggirl