Help With Numbers To Dates

  • Thread starter Thread starter Billy
  • Start date Start date
B

Billy

Hello,

I am trying to paste into Excel, columns of numbers (from Word) that are
separated by hyphens. Excel is converting most of these numbers to a date
format. How can I stop this from happening? I have attempted every Special
Paste feature that Excel 2005 has.

THANKS

Billy
Hampton
 
Select the columns in XL that you intend to use to receive these numbers
from Word, and *PRE-Format* them to text.

Then, simply copy and paste.
 
Apply a Text format to the cells in Excel before you paste them, and
then use Paste Special | Values, which does not change the format when
you paste. If your numbers have hyphens in them then they will have to
be treated as Text values.

Hope this helps.

Pete
 
Hello, Thanks for the replies. I have tried to do what has been suggested.
But, it still ends up showing most of my number values as dates.

THANKS FOR THE REPLY
 
Billy said:
Hello, Thanks for the replies. I have tried to do what has been suggested.
But, it still ends up showing most of my number values as dates.

THANKS FOR THE REPLY
Click to expand...

Try this:

1. Save your MS Word .doc file as a .txt format first.

2. Copy your hyphenated numbers list from the .txt file.

3. Preformat your Excel cells for Text.

4. Paste into Excel.

That should work.

(I just tried pasting from a .doc file, and any hyphenated numbers that
could be interpreted as dates (such as 05-08-07 or 05-08-2007 for example),
will indeed show up in Excel in a date format, regardless of your text
preformatting and regardless of your special pastes. However, pasting from
a .txt file will overcome that peculiarity ---- at least it works on Excel
2003)
 
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