Dates prior to 1900

[Joan]

Is there a place I can tell Excel to accept dates prior
to 1900 so I can sort by them? I am using Excel 2002
(updated thru SP3). I need this for genealogy purposes
and cannot get it to accept dates prior to 1900 for
sorting or formating the data. Thanks for any advice I
can get.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Joan

Visit John Walkenbach's site for more info and a downloadable Extended Date
add-in.

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/usertips/tip028.htm

Gord Dibben Excel MVP

 

[Myrna Larson]

If you don't want to go with John's solutions, then you can enter your dates
like this:

yyyy-mm-dd

i.e. for June 23, 1883, type 1883-06-23

For dates after 1900, you need to precede the enty with an apostrophe, so
Excel treats it as text, i.e. '2004-09-18

With dates in this format, they will sort correctly. But they are text, so you
can't do arithmetic, i.e. calculate age at death. You need John's stuff.