Preventing date conversion in cells

[peter delamere]

I often need to copy and paste data from internet sources into Excel. There
is usually no problem with this except when it appear to have a date format
eg 2-1 or 6-11. Excel always converts these to date format even if I have
formatted the cells as "text". How can I enter this data exactly as shown,
not as a date?.

 

[Andy Brown]

I often need to copy and paste ...

You could try Paste Special, e.g. as Text ; although this might stop your
data parsing to separate cells.

If you use a Web Query (Data -- Get External), there's an Advanced option to
"Disable date recognition".

HTH,
Andy

 

[CLR]

I found that if I pre-format the column as TEXT, then did Copy > Paste
special > TEXT, I could copy the 2-1 and 6-11 out of your post into Excel
as text..........other methods produced the "date" as you
described...........

hth
Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3