Date Formatting

[TheRiverT]

I am trying to enter the date September 19 and I do not want the year tacked
on.
Everytime that I type "September 19" and press enter, Excel automatically
changes it to 19-Sep or when the cell is highlighted it is 9/19/09. How can I
turn off automatic formulas and editing and what not?

 

[Rick Rothstein]

The problem is that, to Excel, a date is made up of a month, day AND year... a month and a day is not a date. If you never want to use it as a date, you can format the cell as Text beforehand; or, if you want to leave the format as General, you can enter your "date" by first typing an apostrophe and then your "date" text (Excel won't show the apostrophe and it will treat your entry as Text).

 

[Per Jessen]

Hi

Select the cell and goto Format > Cells > Number > Category: Custom > Type:
enter "mmmm dd" (without double quote signs)

Regards,
Per

 

[FSt1]

hi
technically you can't. always helpful excel is always helpful excel.
but you can re-do.
preceed your entry with an appostrophe. excel will view it as text. you wont
be able to do calculations with it if you use this technique.
or you can re-format to a custom format.
for you purposes enter the custom format mmmm-d

regards
FSt1

 

[Jim Thomlinson]

XL is converting what you have entered into an actual date that can be used
with all of the date type functions. There are 2 options.

1. Format the cells as text prior to entering the date. This way XL will not
do the conversion. What you see in the cell is just text.
Format -> Format Cells... | Number | Text
2. Format the cells as teh date type that you want. The values in the cells
will be true dates.
Format -> Format Cells... | Number | Custom | Mmmm d