Date value not recognized on computer

[TAH]

Machine one: Export date column from Siebel in csv format and then open
the file with Excel. The date is recognized as such.

Machine two: Export date column from Siebel in csv format and then open
the file with Excel. The date is NOT recognized as a date. Instead it
is seen as text!

Have taken steps to ensure that both machines are on same version of
Excel and same SP (3).

Additionally, if machine two emails its csv file to machine one,
machine one has same problem, i.e., Excel sees the date as text. If,
however, machine one emails its csv file to machine two, then on
machine two, Excel sees the date as a date.

Machine one has UK Regional settings.
Machine two has US Regional settings.

We are about to change machine two over to UK settings and reboot and
see what happens. In the meantime...

Any suggestions?

Kind regards,
TAH



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[TAH]

Well, we found that if we changed the regional settings on machine two,
then it works fine. Apparently the US settings do not, but the UK
settings do.

Any comments would be welcome, as it is not a good workaround for a US
user to go with UK regioinal settings.

Thanks
TAH



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[Dave Peterson]

If you renamed your .csv to .txt, then when you do File|open, you'll get the
import text wizard.

You have much more control of what fields are what. You can choose mdy or dmy
when you're defining the field.

Another option that I've seen posted that sounds pretty neat to me is to format
the date as General. Then instead of showing 08/15/2003 (mm/dd/yyyy), you'll
see 37848. Then import the file and change the format to the date style you
like.

But there's one gotcha. The users will have to have the same base date
(Tools|Options|Calculation Tab--most windows users have 1900 as the base date).
The 1904 is(was?) commonly used on Macs.