why does the date 09/01/07 come up as January 9, 2007?

[Guest]

When I type September 1, 2007 as 09/01/07 excel formats it to 09-Jan-07. Why
is that? It didn't used to do this, it changed to this recently and I can't
find the option to change it back.

 

[MartinW]

Hi Confused,

Try your Windows regional settings, sounds like they are set to
something other than US.
Start>Settings>Control Panel>Regional and Language Options

HTH
Martin

 

[Guest]

One thing to check is the cell format (Format/Cells). Another thing to check
is Windows short date regional setting (Control Panel/Regional and Language
Options).

 

[Guest]

Dates default to the Country/Region set in the Windows operating system. You
set this via Control Panel and this is the format for entering all dates in
Excel.

In Excel you can set the date format for particular cell/s via the Number
format. However, when you do this, if your operating system date is set to
day month year and you format dates within excel to be month day year then
when you enter a date in the formula bar you must still enter it inthe
country/region format of day month year and allow Excel to alter the format
within the spreadsheet.

Regards,

OssieMac

Y

 

[Guest]

Thanks JMB, MartinW & OssieMac. The regional settings was exactly what I was
looking for. I live in Canada so, of course, I set the settings to Canada.
Apparently we Canadians use the day-month-year format. I set it to U.S. and
it went back to month-day-year.