Turn off automatic date format

[jpkeller55]

I searched the site but did not find an aswer to my question. I a
copying data from a web site that look like this:

27-40
25-40
8-57
12-53

I want the data to remain as it is shown above but when I paste int
Excel, I get the following:

27-40
25-40
Aug-57
Dec-53

It appears if the text does not look like a valid date excel leaves i
alone. But if it looks like a possible date, it formats it into a dat
format. How do I paste this data and prevent Excel from converting i
into a date format?

Thanks, Ji

 

[Guest]

Format the cell as Text prior to the pasting.

 

[jpkeller55]

That doesn't seem to work. I have tried formatting cells as text before
pasting and after pasting and I still get the same results. What am I
missing?

 

[Pete_UK]

Have you tried formatting the cells as text beforehand, then using copy
with Edit | Paste Special | Values? This should not overwrite the
formatting you have set up, whereas copy with paste does.

Hope this helps,

Pete