US date (text) to AUS date

[Guest]

hi, we have a column of american dates which is only formatted as text. we
need to convert to australian date format, but nothing works.
any suggestions would be great
thank you

 

[RagDyer]

You can probably use TTC (Text To Columns).

But, to know for sure, post some examples of the dates you presently have.

Usually, if there's 2 digits for each parameter, you should be OK.

 

[Guest]

an example is
08/24/2005
the problem is that i cannot seem to format as date then change the country
or anything.

 

[Guest]

hi, we have a column of american dates which is only formatted as text. we
need to convert to australian date format, but nothing works.
any suggestions would be great
thank you

Sound to me like you havent set the computer up for Australia.

go to control panel then regional and language options and set the location
for Australia. You will also need to set the language to English Australian
in both the control panel and Excel

 

[Dave Peterson]

Select that column
Data|Text to columns
Fixed width (but don't add any lines and remove any that excel guessed)
Choose Date (mdy)
and finish up.

Apply the date format you want from Format|cells|number tab.

========
Be aware that if you have any real dates in that original column, this may
destroy those dates.

For instance, you may have imported any values that looked like: 01/02/2006 as
a real date. But it may not be the date that you think.

If the date came from a USA source, then it probably meant January 2nd, 2006.

But since excel (with your Australian settings) could see that it was a valid
date and that cell may be February 1st, 2006.

You may want to check to see if you have any of those problems before you
continue.