My daughter called me this evening for help.

She typed 3.1 (decimal number) into a cell and it came out as "3,jan" which
would have been correct had this been a date. But it is not.

Of course I asked her to check the cell format, but whatever she changed the
format to (on my instruction) it displayed the same! Decimal numbers that
did not constitute a valid date (e.g. 3.16 or 35.2) came out as desired.
(This is Norway with default date format DMY)

Any suggestion where to start looking?

regards Sven

This is a complete guess -- only try this if you have time or don't get any
other responses(!).

I'd look at windows regional settings.

If you're running the same version of windows, you can double check your
settings against hers.

(I use winXP home, so it may be different for you and your daughter)
Open control panel|regional settings|Regional options tab
click the Customize button
Compare and contrast the settings on both the numbers and date tabs

========
It could be an event macro, but she can test that by making sure that she opens
the workbook with macros disabled. (I wouldn't guess this first.)

Sven Pran wrote:

My daughter called me this evening for help.

She typed 3.1 (decimal number) into a cell and it came out as "3,jan" which
would have been correct had this been a date. But it is not.

Of course I asked her to check the cell format, but whatever she changed the
format to (on my instruction) it displayed the same! Decimal numbers that
did not constitute a valid date (e.g. 3.16 or 35.2) came out as desired.
(This is Norway with default date format DMY)

Any suggestion where to start looking?

regards Sven

--

Dave Peterson

This is a "feature" of Excel.

First, Excel thinks her decimal point is a comma. It gets this from the
Windows Regional Settings (in Control Panel). With this setting, the decimal
number 3.1 needs to be entered as 3,1. Otherwise, Excel interprets her entry
as the 3rd of January.

The formatting of the cell has no impact on the interpretation of entered
data (unless the format is text).

Her choices a
-- change the Windows regional settings.
-- enter decimals as a comma rather than a period.

Regards,
Fred.

"Sven Pran" wrote in message
...
My daughter called me this evening for help.

She typed 3.1 (decimal number) into a cell and it came out as "3,jan"
which would have been correct had this been a date. But it is not.

Of course I asked her to check the cell format, but whatever she changed
the format to (on my instruction) it displayed the same! Decimal numbers
that did not constitute a valid date (e.g. 3.16 or 35.2) came out as
desired. (This is Norway with default date format DMY)

Any suggestion where to start looking?

regards Sven

Thanks for the comments, the following is my qualified guess which I believe
is correct:
(I shall verify that we have not overlooked something silly)
1: "Regional settings" is for Norway
2: I believe she tried both comma and period (on my instruction) with the
same result.

Well, her machine is a Windows 98 and she will get a new machine in about
two weeks now so I think we can delay the efforts with troubleshooting till
then.

regards Sven

"Fred Smith" wrote in message
...
This is a "feature" of Excel.

First, Excel thinks her decimal point is a comma. It gets this from the
Windows Regional Settings (in Control Panel). With this setting, the
decimal number 3.1 needs to be entered as 3,1. Otherwise, Excel interprets
her entry as the 3rd of January.

The formatting of the cell has no impact on the interpretation of entered
data (unless the format is text).

Her choices a
-- change the Windows regional settings.
-- enter decimals as a comma rather than a period.

Regards,
Fred.

"Sven Pran" wrote in message
...
My daughter called me this evening for help.

She typed 3.1 (decimal number) into a cell and it came out as "3,jan"
which would have been correct had this been a date. But it is not.

Of course I asked her to check the cell format, but whatever she changed
the format to (on my instruction) it displayed the same! Decimal numbers
that did not constitute a valid date (e.g. 3.16 or 35.2) came out as
desired. (This is Norway with default date format DMY)

Any suggestion where to start looking?

regards Sven