One of Excel's "features" is that it converts anything that can be converted
to a date INTO a date.....even if that's not what you want.

In a cell not specifically formatted as Text,
entering 4-7 "should" return 39,179
......Which is the date serial number for 07-Apr-2007
However, you're getting 38,814?
......That's the date serial number for 07-Apr-2006
......Does your computer have the wrong year set?

To stop that on a cell-by-cell basis, set the cell's number format to Text.
OR
Prepend your value with an apostrophe:
'4-7

Does that help?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"HELP" wrote:

Hi, I was just curious. First, is this bug ever going to be fixed. Second,
how does 4-7 get interpretted as 38814 when switching from date format to
text format, and why? I cannot follow the logic, please help it is really
bugging me.