Excel Changes Dates into Numbers Automatically

-1

Everytime I enter a date into a cell (e.g. 11/6/1989), Excel keeps changing it into a five or six digit number. How can I get it to stop doing this?

waterclerk

Posted 2016-12-19T14:40:24.823

Reputation: 1

Question was closed 2016-12-20T14:36:20.283

2Your cell is formatted as general or number, Change the format to short date. – Scott Craner – 2016-12-19T14:42:26.820

I tried formatting the cell/row and it won't change it – waterclerk – 2016-12-19T14:54:51.020

Answers

0

The cell that you are trying to enter the date into is formatted wrong. It depends on your version of Excel, but for the latest as of this writing (Excel 2016), you can change the cell's format to "Date" by following these steps:

  1. Right click the cell.
  2. Click "Format Cells..."
  3. In the box labeled "Category", click the "Date" field.
  4. Hit the "OK" button.

If this does not work for you, you can force Excel to display the date verbatim by adding an apostrophe (the ' character) before your data (like '11/6/1989).

FoxMcloud5655

Posted 2016-12-19T14:40:24.823

Reputation: 131

I already tried that and its not working. – waterclerk – 2016-12-19T15:00:11.197

What version of Excel are you using? – FoxMcloud5655 – 2016-12-19T15:01:49.603

I am using excel 2010 – waterclerk – 2016-12-19T15:29:30.073

Check my answer again for an alternate option. – FoxMcloud5655 – 2016-12-19T20:11:34.670

Asked: 2016-12-19T14:40:24.823

Viewed: 11 961 times

Active: 2016-12-19T20:11:12.403