Pasted fractions converted to dates

[Jon_C]

I'm trying to copy a table containing text, decimals and fractions
from a word table into excel. How can i stop the fractions from
becoming dates when pasted?

ie. 1-5/8 becomes 1/5/2008 and 9/16 becomes 16-Sep.

 

[Bernard Liengme]

Its the hyphen that is causeing the trouble.
A fraction in Excel has the form 1 5/8 with a space between the integer and
the fractional parts
Can you get rid of the hyphen in the Word doc?
best wishes
Bernard

 

[Jon_C]

Its the hyphen that is causeing the trouble.
A fraction in Excel has the form 1 5/8 with a space between the integer and
the fractional parts
Can you get rid of the hyphen in the Word doc?
best wishes
Bernard







- Show quoted text -

I could get rid of the hyphens but what about the second example: 9/16
becoming 16-Sep?
Really I'd just like excel to treat the pasted data as plain text and
not apply any formatting. I don't need the data to have any numerical
value.
I'm using Excel 2000 btw.

 

[Bernard Liengme]

A fraction with no integer need either a leading space or a zero followed by
a space
best wishes

 

[Tyro]

I sent you an email about the consolidation sheet at the address below and
it didn't go through

Tyro

 

[Bernard Liengme]

remove TRUENORTH

 

[Jon_C]

A fraction with no integer need either a leading space or a zero followed by
a space
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVPwww.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email







- Show quoted text -

OK but for a simpler solution, is there any way to stop excel from
changing the cell formats from Text to Date when I paste in the data?
It only seems to happen if I'm pasting out of Word btw. I can type
'1/16' in Notepad and paste it into an excel cell formatted as text
and it stays as text. If I paste '1/16' from Word the cell changes
format to Date.