dates

[Prisc]

I want to enter dates (from 18th century to 21st century) as text, but
Excel insists on formatting dates after 19[04] as dates. Can anyone
help?

 

[Geoff Lilley]

I want to enter dates (from 18th century to 21st century) as text, but
Excel insists on formatting dates after 19[04] as dates. Can anyone
help?

Sure. Two ways to do it. If you wanted to enter your dates like
this: 1-1-1800, then you could:

1) Put an apostrophe (') before the cell value. That will force XL
to treat it as a text, not a date.
2) Format the cells as text, then enter in the values. Same net
result.

HTH
Cheers
Geoff

 

[Prisc]

I want to enter dates (from 18th century to 21st century) as text, but
Excel insists on formatting dates after 19[04] as dates. Can anyone
help?

Sure. Two ways to do it. If you wanted to enter your dates like
this: 1-1-1800, then you could:

1) Put an apostrophe (') before the cell value. That will force XL
to treat it as a text, not a date.
2) Format the cells as text, then enter in the values. Same net
result.

HTH
Cheers
Geoff

Many thanks!

Prisc