date syntax

[damonh]

I have a date in string format, that is in the US format
ie 12/25/04, as they are strings i cant format them
directly. The function datevalue() lets me turn this into
the serial number version and from there i can format it
whatever way I want. My problem is that I have windows set
to a european date format (ie 25/12/04) and so if i use
datevalue() on the american syntaxed date strings I get an
error as excel can't understand them. Does anybody know a
way around this?

Cheers,

damonh

 

[JE McGimpsey]

You can change them in place:

Select the column with your dates. Choose Data/Text to columns. Click
Next, Next. Select the MDY option from the date dropdown. Click Finish.

 

[Frank Kabel]

Hi
you may try the following formula
=DATE("20" & RIGHT(A1,2),LEFT(A1,2),MID(A1,4,2))
to convert your text date to an Excel date