date cell format

  • Thread starter Thread starter acb
  • Start date Start date
A

acb

i am working with an external data set (european) in which
the date cell is formatted as this:
dd.mm.yy
when i sort by date, excel does not recognize the format
and thus the initial sort is by day instead of by month.
is there a way to fix this or get around it so i can sort
by date and the result will be sequential?
thanks!
acb
 
I'm not sure what's happening for you...but I have 10 cells with
custom format of dd.mm.yy When I sort them, they do sor
sequentially...I'm using Windows 2000 and Office XP.

Wish I could be more of a help.

Good luck,

Dave M
 
It sounds like they're not really dates--just text pretending to be dates.

Try this against a test copy
first close excel
windows start button
settings|Control panel|regional settings
Date format
make sure your short date is the same order as your data (dmy).
Apply and back to excel

Open your workbook.
select your range of cells and
edit|replace
..
with
/

Excel will see this as a date.

You can give it a custom format of dd.mm.yy and it'll look the same, but sort
nicely.

(don't forget to change the windows regional settings back when you're done.)
 

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