I was given an Excel spreadsheet from a small business client. It's very
simple - they track cash expenditures by day, so they have the dates listed
in rows down the left side, and column headers with their expense categories
across the top.

The problem with the spreadsheet is that EVERY date you enter automatically
converts to a serial number, and EVERY number converts to left justifed text.
Even using a function results in the syntax of the function appearing as
text in the cell, rather than the actual result of the function. Changing
the formatting isn't working. I'm thinking there must be some setting or
something that is allowing only text to be allowed in this spreadsheet. Does
anyone else have any ideas?