J
Joshua Ammann
I am using Excel 2000, but I am pretty sure I have observed this
behaviour before in other versions:
How can you paste a table of values into Excel without the program
interpreting the values as anything except text? Here is a good example
table:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings/grid
When I copy and paste a table such as this one into Excel, the cell
values consisting of two numbers separated by a dash get formatted as a
date values, even though they are not dates. (For example: the season
series between Baltimore and Boston is now 4-4. Excel pastes it as
4/4/2005.)
Pre-formatting the cells as text does not work. Changing the format to
text after pasting only changes the dates to their serial number
equivalent. I have also tried every "paste special" option, with no
success.
This also happens with other values, such as duration. Values such as
"2:13" (meaning an event duration of two minutes and thirteen seconds)
also get pasted as date/time values. Basically, anything Excel "thinks"
it recognizes as a specific format, becomes that format, instead of
just flat text (and letting the user select a format later).
I'm sure this must have come up before but I couldn't find it in my
searching. Thanks for any tips or pointers in the right direction.
JA
behaviour before in other versions:
How can you paste a table of values into Excel without the program
interpreting the values as anything except text? Here is a good example
table:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings/grid
When I copy and paste a table such as this one into Excel, the cell
values consisting of two numbers separated by a dash get formatted as a
date values, even though they are not dates. (For example: the season
series between Baltimore and Boston is now 4-4. Excel pastes it as
4/4/2005.)
Pre-formatting the cells as text does not work. Changing the format to
text after pasting only changes the dates to their serial number
equivalent. I have also tried every "paste special" option, with no
success.
This also happens with other values, such as duration. Values such as
"2:13" (meaning an event duration of two minutes and thirteen seconds)
also get pasted as date/time values. Basically, anything Excel "thinks"
it recognizes as a specific format, becomes that format, instead of
just flat text (and letting the user select a format later).
I'm sure this must have come up before but I couldn't find it in my
searching. Thanks for any tips or pointers in the right direction.
JA