I have a worksheet where I entered the date format as Date and format Aug-06.
However, when I enter a date that should be say Aug-05 the date always comes
up as Aug-06. Could anyone tell me why this is happening.

I am using Excel 2003.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Dee

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 11:18:28 -0800, Dee wrote:

I have a worksheet where I entered the date format as Date and format Aug-06.
However, when I enter a date that should be say Aug-05 the date always comes
up as Aug-06. Could anyone tell me why this is happening.

I am using Excel 2003.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Dee

Date formatting only affects how the contents of a cell is displayed. It does
NOT affect how what you type in is interpreted.

When you enter a date into an Excel cell, if the data entry "makes sense" in
accord with the Windows Regional Settings, Excel's interpretation of your entry
will not necessarily be what you wish.

Actually, it's not all that clear from what you wrote exactly what you are
entering and what you expect. But I will make some ASSumptions (hopefully
without being an ASS).

If you use one of the standard formats that appears to display Aug-06, the 06
represents the year.

If you subsequently enter 8/05 into some cell, Excel interprets that as 5
August 2006.

If you enter in the second position a number that cannot represent a day within
the month, e.g. 8/32, then Excel will interpret that as 1 August 1932.

In general, unless you wish to default to the current year and/or understand
Excel's parsing rules, you need to be unambiguous with your date entries.

In the US, you could enter 8/5/2005 7 Aug 2005 and so forth.


--ron