date format not working

[jenkinstoby]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) all of a sudden an excel file won't format a cell as Date. Even though the rest of the file does?!

I've tried formatting the cells in question and even though it shows dd/mm/yy it still returns a random number 3029989 or something

is there someway of resetting excel. removing some preferences file or something? thanks in advance

 

[John McGhie]

It is possible for an Excel file to "corrupt". It's rare, but when it
happens, you get strange indications such as this.

The first thing I would check is that the content of that cell has not
decided to turn itself into "text". If you have the characters stored as
text instead of a number, Excel can't display it as a date, even though the
column is formatted as a date.

If that doesn't work, create a new workbook, then copy the contents of that
one into the new one. Use Paste Special and paste only "formulas". The
corruption is usually in the formatting.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) all of a sudden an
excel file won't format a cell as Date. Even though the rest of the file
does?!

I've tried formatting the cells in question and even though it shows dd/mm/yy
it still returns a random number 3029989 or something

is there someway of resetting excel. removing some preferences file or
something? thanks in advance

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]