turn off automatic date recognition!

  • Thread starter Thread starter JohnL
  • Start date Start date
Anyone know how to turn off Excel's automatic date
recognition function?

Not possible because Microsoft programmers know better than you how you should
enter data into Excel. Sarcasm aside, either you need to precede all such
entries with a single quote or you need to give these cells the numeric format
Text before entering anything into them.
 
John

Pre-format the cell as Text or precede the entry with an apostrophe.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP
 
Not possible because Microsoft programmers know better than you how you should
enter data into Excel. Sarcasm aside, either you need to precede all such

I'm curious. If dates were not recognized as such, how many people,
including yourself, would criticize MS for *that*?

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta, MS MVP -- Excel
www.tushar-mehta.com
Excel, PowerPoint, and VBA add-ins, tutorials
Custom MS Office productivity solutions
 
...
...
I'm curious. If dates were not recognized as such, how many people,
including yourself, would criticize MS for *that*?

Who the heck says I would, you @#$% @#$@#$%!$%?

I suppose you're one of the unimaginitive types who prefer one and only rigidly
enforced way of doing anything, and you can't conceive of the possibility that
there might be times when you'd want Excel to accept

2003-12-31

as text just like Excel has no problem whatsoever accepting

2003-99-31

as text. Note: this is on a system in which the systemwide default short and
long date formats are mm/dd/yyyy and mmmm d, yyyy. It's one thing for Excel to
convert entries in these formats into date serial numbers automatically. It's a
major PITA for excel to convert any other entries automatically.

It's also the lack of any way to *DISABLE* (and subsequently re-enable) this
feature that's the problem (along with putatively knowledgeable users who are so
obtuse as to fail to understand that this could be a problem).
 
One more thing. If Excel allowed one to disable automatic date entry conversion,
it'd still be relatively painless to convert date entries as text after the fact
simply by the expedient of (1) re-enabling automatic date entry conversion, and
(2) replacing all / with /. Lack of options/flexibility is evil, so naturally
fortcoming from Microsoft. Also unsurprising that the useful idiots see nothing
wrong with this.
 
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