I know this seems like an easy one, but I am working on a research
project for the Director of the program that I work for and I need to
change the way birthdate is formatted in a particular column. It reads
year first and then month and day.. 20051024 and he wants it to read
10/24/2005. I assumed I could just go to formatting and change it and
it will not let me. There are 6900 some odd records so there is no
possible way to do them manually.. Can anyone help?


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stittalPosted from - http://www.officehelp.in

Sounds like it is not a date. Try adding a helper column with a formula of

=DATE(LEFT(A1,4),MID(A1,5,2),RIGHT(A1,2))

and copy down.

--

HTH

RP
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)


"stittal" wrote in message
...

I know this seems like an easy one, but I am working on a research
project for the Director of the program that I work for and I need to
change the way birthdate is formatted in a particular column. It reads
year first and then month and day.. 20051024 and he wants it to read
10/24/2005. I assumed I could just go to formatting and change it and
it will not let me. There are 6900 some odd records so there is no
possible way to do them manually.. Can anyone help?


--
stittalPosted from - http://www.officehelp.in

You can select the entire column by clicking on the column label ( the
letter in the gray area at the top of the column) then right click within
the selected column and choose Format Cells from the menu.

HTH


Steve


"stittal" wrote in message
...

I know this seems like an easy one, but I am working on a research
project for the Director of the program that I work for and I need to
change the way birthdate is formatted in a particular column. It reads
year first and then month and day.. 20051024 and he wants it to read
10/24/2005. I assumed I could just go to formatting and change it and
it will not let me. There are 6900 some odd records so there is no
possible way to do them manually.. Can anyone help?


--
stittalPosted from - http://www.officehelp.in

Try DataText to ColumnsNextNextColumn Data FormatDateYMDFinish


Gord Dibben Excel MVP



On Mon, 24 Oct 2005 18:50:19 +0530, stittal
wrote:


I know this seems like an easy one, but I am working on a research
project for the Director of the program that I work for and I need to
change the way birthdate is formatted in a particular column. It reads
year first and then month and day.. 20051024 and he wants it to read
10/24/2005. I assumed I could just go to formatting and change it and
it will not let me. There are 6900 some odd records so there is no
possible way to do them manually.. Can anyone help?

Thank you so much Gord Dibben... that worked. thanks.


--
stittalPosted from - http://www.officehelp.in

Thanks for the feedback.

Gord

On Mon, 24 Oct 2005 22:42:31 +0530, stittal
wrote:


Thank you so much Gord Dibben... that worked. thanks.