Help with Date formats

[ROn Stalenberg]

I have a large SS. Dates were suplied in 4-21-1998 format. I need to calc the
difference between 2 dates. but the formula =MONTH(A3)-MONTH(A2) wont work. I
suspect that the supplied dates are in text format or something since I can't
change the formats using the Format/Cells/Dates method. How can I eiather get
the formula to work, or change the date format of the supplied data?

(Someone did reply to this earlier, but the link didn't connect.)
Thanks

Ron S

 

[Joel]

There is either invisible chartacter in the cell of there is a single quote
at the beginning to the data to force it to be a string.

You need to click on the cell and look at the value in the F(x) box at the
top of the worksheet. Once you find out what is wrong with the data you can
use the worksheet menu Edit - Replace to remove the bad characters by putting
the chartacter you want to remove in the top box and putting nothing in the
to box. Then replace All. If you can't figure out which invisible character
you have then highlight the invisible characrter in the F(x) box and type
Cntl-C. Then go to the replace box and past the character into the from box
using CNTL-V.