looks can be deceiving?

[childofthe1980s]

Hello:

I have two columns in a spreadsheet. One is a currency column that needs to
have two decimal places, while the other is a date column that needs to
retain the custom formatting of mmddyyyy.

The formatting needs to be just as I described, because I am importing this
data into a software package that requires this formatting.

The currency column appear OK. But, if you click on a cell that displays in
the cell as say 1950.50, it appears as 1950.5 in the top of the spreadsheet
in the formula bar (the bar to the right of "fx"). In other words, it looks
correct in the cell, but I'm wondering if it truly is two decimal places. Is
it?

The date column is interesting. If I right click on the column, the number
formatting shows the custom format of mmddyyyy which is what I want. But,
only some of the dates truly appear that way some appear as say 09/15/04.
Since the format window appears correct, is the data in the column "correct"
and just "appearing" to be what I do not want?

Hope that made sense.

Thanks, for your time!

childofthe1980s

 

[Dave Peterson]

Formatting the cell doesn't change the value in the cell--as you've seen.

And in arithmetic,
..5 = .50 = .500 = .5000 ....

You could format the cells containing dates to the long strings (like "Monday,
July 24, 2006") and the underlying value would still be that date.

So I guess the real question is how do you get the values into that other
program--and if that method works for you.