NO date formats work

[dusenet]

Greetings.

I have the latest version of Excel 2008 for Mac. It works okay except
for date formats, which don't work at all. For example, if I select a
column -> format cells -> date -> March 20, 2008, then type 11/14/08
in a cell in that column, it never changes from 11/14/08. When I first
started using Excel 2008, dates worked okay, but then they quit
working. Several uninstall/reinstall attempts did not fix it. I would
greatly appreciate any help.

Thanks.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have the latest version of Excel 2008 for Mac. It works okay except
for date formats, which don't work at all. For example, if I select a
column -> format cells -> date -> March 20, 2008, then type 11/14/08
in a cell in that column, it never changes from 11/14/08. When I first
started using Excel 2008, dates worked okay, but then they quit
working. Several uninstall/reinstall attempts did not fix it. I would
greatly appreciate any help.

First, uninstall/reinstall is, in almost every case, a complete waste of
time. People used to Windows computers seem to have a fetish for it (and
it's lazy tech support's favorite gambit), but applications just don't
corrupt very frequently at all.

The most common cause of the date not changing is that the cells are
actually formatted as Text, so XL's parser doesn't try to interpret them
(sometimes pasting in data from other applications also causes this, but
you said you're typing.)

However, you said that you're changing the cell format first, so that
can't be it.

XL picks up the native date format from the System Preferences. Have you
changed your international pane date settings? If you enter the date in
A1, does

=ISTEXT(A1)

return TRUE?

Is your copy of XL fully updated (i.e., to 12.1.3)? What language are
you using?

Does this happen in a fresh MacOS user account?



BTW - do you really see a "March 20, 2008" setting? Mine's "March 14,
2001".

 

[dusenet]

First, uninstall/reinstall is, in almost every case, a complete waste of
time. People used to Windows computers seem to have a fetish for it (and
it's lazy tech support's favorite gambit), but applications just don't
corrupt very frequently at all.

The most common cause of the date not changing is that the cells are
actually formatted as Text, so XL's parser doesn't try to interpret them
(sometimes pasting in data from other applications also causes this, but
you said you're typing.)

However, you said that you're changing the cell format first, so that
can't be it.

XL picks up the native date format from the System Preferences. Have you
changed your international pane date settings? If you enter the date in
A1, does

=ISTEXT(A1)

return TRUE?

Is your copy of XL fully updated (i.e., to 12.1.3)? What language are
you using?

Does this happen in a fresh MacOS user account?

BTW - do you really see a "March 20, 2008" setting? Mine's "March 14,
2001".

The parameters of my inquiry have changed, I think.

I ignored part of your advice and uninstalled Excel again using
AppZapper, which also deleted the preferences file. I reinstalled,
formatted A as date (yes, "March 14, 2001" - I was ad libbing),
entered a date like '11/18/8', and formatting worked! I then opened an
xls file that was created in XP. Date formatting did not work. I
didn't save that file, but exited Excel, opened it again, and
formatted A as before in a new spreadsheet. Dates no longer formatted.
So I did the ISTEXT test and the cell is, indeed, text.

So now my questions are: why are the cells text after I just formatted
them as date, and how can I fix it?

Thank you for your response!