reformat dates to yyyy/mm/dd

[Katerinia]

I have a worksheet with dates of mm/dd/yyyy

I need to reformat them now to be yyyy/mm/dd

Whats the formula for that?

 

[Dave Peterson]

If the values are really dates, you could just select the range and change the
format to what you want.

 

[FSt1]

hi
formulas cannot return formats only values.
right click the cell in question and apply a custom format....
in the type box of the custom catagory enter....

yyyy/mm/dd

regards
FSt1

 

[Katerinia]

My concern is the data being uploaded into a database, even though the format
looks like yyyy/mm/dd, the cell value is still mm/dd/yyyy. Will it read the
data the way IT says it should be (yyyy/mm/dd)

 

[Dave Peterson]

It depends on the process that you use to upload them into your database.

If you save a Text file (like .txt, .prn, or .csv), try reformatting, doing the
SaveAs and open the text file in Notepad to verify.

If your importing procedure reads the excel file, I would think that it would be
better to make sure that it knows how to read dates--and handles them correctly
itself.

If the importing procedure reads the field as text (while in excel), you could
use a helper column with a formula like:

=text(a1,"yyyy/mm/dd")
and drag down
Copy|paste special|values and delete???? the original field.

But that won't work if the original data isn't a real date.

 

[Katerinia]

=text(a1,"yyyy/mm/dd")
Did the trick! IT was happy when they got the file! YAY. Thanks for your
help!