automatically format dates in a cell

[Stephan Laska]

Hi All,
when I type a date into a cell, it automatically converts it to a date-time
variable
and formats it according to the system parameters.

Is there any way I can turn this off? I don't want my date as a date time
variable,
nor do I want it to format to what the system format is.

thanks
stephan

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I'm not sure what a "date time variable" is, but if you want an XL date,
but in the format you specify, preformat the cells with that format.

If you don't want the date converted to an XL date at all, then
preformat the cells as Text. They will then be left in whatever format
you enter.

 

[Stephan Laska]

date-time variable is equivalent to a float
3:15PM 17 July 2006 is equivalent to 38914.6354166667,
which is the number of elapsed days since the stroke of
midnight on 31 Dec 1899

thanks for your help, but preformating doesn't help me.
I would like the autoformat turned off globally,
so it would leave whatever date or time I type alone as text

 

[JE McGimpsey]

XL doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Unless you preformat as text,
the parser gets first crack at the input, and will interpret it as a
date. Your input format is lost.

The alternative is to prefix all your entries with an apostrophe (')
which tells the parser that what follows is text.