Cell formatting error, Excel 2003

[Sven Pran]

My daughter called me this evening for help.

She typed 3.1 (decimal number) into a cell and it came out as "3,jan" which
would have been correct had this been a date. But it is not.

Of course I asked her to check the cell format, but whatever she changed the
format to (on my instruction) it displayed the same! Decimal numbers that
did not constitute a valid date (e.g. 3.16 or 35.2) came out as desired.
(This is Norway with default date format DMY)

Any suggestion where to start looking?

regards Sven

 

[Dave Peterson]

This is a complete guess -- only try this if you have time or don't get any
other responses(!).

I'd look at windows regional settings.

If you're running the same version of windows, you can double check your
settings against hers.

(I use winXP home, so it may be different for you and your daughter)
Open control panel|regional settings|Regional options tab
click the Customize button
Compare and contrast the settings on both the numbers and date tabs

========
It could be an event macro, but she can test that by making sure that she opens
the workbook with macros disabled. (I wouldn't guess this first.)

 

[Fred Smith]

This is a "feature" of Excel.

First, Excel thinks her decimal point is a comma. It gets this from the
Windows Regional Settings (in Control Panel). With this setting, the decimal
number 3.1 needs to be entered as 3,1. Otherwise, Excel interprets her entry
as the 3rd of January.

The formatting of the cell has no impact on the interpretation of entered
data (unless the format is text).

Her choices are:
-- change the Windows regional settings.
-- enter decimals as a comma rather than a period.

Regards,
Fred.

 

[Sven Pran]

Thanks for the comments, the following is my qualified guess which I believe
is correct:
(I shall verify that we have not overlooked something silly)
1: "Regional settings" is for Norway
2: I believe she tried both comma and period (on my instruction) with the
same result.

Well, her machine is a Windows 98 and she will get a new machine in about
two weeks now so I think we can delay the efforts with troubleshooting till
then.

regards Sven