Rather than formatting them as 'General', try formatting them as 'Text'.
That should prevent Excel from converting 4-1 to 1 Apr. Or, if you prefer,
leave them formatted as General, but instead of putting a space in front of
the entry, put a single quote mark ( ' ) in front of it, as: '4-1 which will
force Excel to treat the entry as text regardless of the cell's format
setting.

"Deej Hernandez" wrote:

I have Office 2007 running in Vista Home Premium. My system got FUBARed and
had to be reloaded. Now my Excel workbooks won't keep the proper formatting
in cells. I have them formatted as general so that I can type in something
like 4 - 1. As soon as I do that it converts the formatting to Custom and
puts it in as a 1-Apr. If I try to reformat the cell as general I then get
39904. If I enter it as space 4 - 1 then it enters correctly.

How can I make the cell give me the correct information without putting a
space in front of it?