How do I stop the date auto formating

  • Thread starter Thread starter soundsalarming
  • Start date Start date
S

soundsalarming

I am importing data into Excel from an html table using cut'n'paste. Th
data that i am importing has a from and to date, in the format 98-99 o
01-03 etc.

The 98-03 imports fine but 01-03 gets changed to 01-Mar and when i sav
it to csv it changes again to 38048.

I'm sure this is something simple but I cant seem to resolve it
 
Things I have tried so far:

format cell to special [oo-oo]
format cell to special [yy-yy]
manually change format from 01-03 to 01 - 03

no success so far
 
soundsalarming > said:
Things I have tried so far:

format cell to special [oo-oo]
format cell to special [yy-yy]
manually change format from 01-03 to 01 - 03

no success so far
Click to expand...

Format the cell(s) as text BEFORE entering any data.
You cannot change back once the data has been entered.
 
Put the date in a cell that doesn't matter. Let it autoformat to whatever it
decides, or set the cell to number format to display what MS describes in
transliterated French as the serial number. If that cell is A1, put this
formula in another cell formatted, if you want, as text:

=(YEAR(A1)&"-"&MONTH(A1)&"-"&DAY(A1))

The advantage is that BG won't mess the format up if you change your XL
version, "regional" settings, hairdo, etc. This example is in ISO format,
but obviously you can change it to get American/French/Chinese or whatever,
and include seconds.

Regards
 
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