date format keeps changing

[Carrie]

Hi Everyone,

I am trying to write journal entries for an accounting class. I put the date
in the following format: May 15. I then hit tab to go to the next cell and
Excel changes the date format to: 15-May. How do I get it to stop that?

Carrie

 

[Kevin B]

Select the cells that the dates will be entered in and then click FORMAT on
the menu and select CELLS.

Click the NUMBER tab and in the CATEGORY column scroll down to the bottom of
the list and select CUSTOM.

To the right of the CATEGORY column is the TYPE field. Enter the following
format mask in the text box below TYPE:

mmmm d

Click OK and press <ENTER> to complete the process.

 

[Carrie]

Thank you so much! It worked perfectly now. It was doing just fine the first
20 times and then it just started changing itself. Do you have any idea why
it would start changing itself in the middle of the page?

 

[John C]

Because MS hates us?????
--
John C

Thank you so much! It worked perfectly now. It was doing just fine the first
20 times and then it just started changing itself. Do you have any idea why
it would start changing itself in the middle of the page?

 

[Kevin B]

I'm not sure why it did that. Did you press the space bar before entering
May 15? If you did Excel would treat your entry as a text entry and not as a
date entry.

The advantage of using preformatted cells is that any valid date entry will
be formatted the the same way, but I don't know why your first 20 dates
displayed properly and the following dates did not.

 

[Carrie]

I probably hit something I wasn't supposed to hit. Thanks for responding
Kevin, I appreciate your time. Carrie