Protecting cells

[Stephen_Lindeque]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I have set up an Excel spreadsheet with date and time formats in certain columns, I am looking to protect these cells so that the guys entering the data into these cells have to use the same format every time e.g. mm/dd/yy. Problem is some guys around the world use different formats dd/mm/yy or mm.dd.yy or mm-dd-yy. I would like to force the guys to enter in the same format every time.

How do I protect cell formats?

 

[Laroche J]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

I have set up an Excel spreadsheet with date and time formats in certain
columns, I am looking to protect these cells so that the guys entering the
data into these cells have to use the same format every time e.g. mm/dd/yy.
Problem is some guys around the world use different formats dd/mm/yy or
mm.dd.yy or mm-dd-yy. I would like to force the guys to enter in the same
format every time.

How do I protect cell formats?

Excel DISPLAYS the date in the date in the format that you have set in the
cell. But when a user TYPES a date, the order in which the numbers are
interpreted depends on that user's OS X International preference date
setting.

In other words, you may want to display the date as mm/dd/yy, and the user
could perfectly enter it as yy-mm-dd if that's his OS X setting. The date
would be saved correctly. The error comes if this user tries to type the
date in the model mm/dd/yy, Excel will interpret the first number as the
year, the second as the month and the third as the day. The users must learn
to enter the dates in their own native format and let Excel do the
formatting.

You could add a measure of protection with Data / Validation, forcing a
date between two extreme limits.

JL
Mac OS X 10.4.11, Office v.X 10.1.9