Hi

I am having troubles with formatting cells in EXCEL 2003.

I have a column of many hundreds of rows lthat contain data like
this:

01Jan12

on fist glance this looks like a date but it really is not.

EXCEL on the other automatically assumes it is a date and formats as
such.

2001-Jan-12

I have tried formatting as text, General and even experimented with
custom formats to no avail.

In the same column I have

03Mar1543

Which is dispolayed exactly as is.

How can I get EXCEL to simply display data like 01Jan12 exactly as is?

You must format the cell as Text BEFORE typing any information into it. An
alternative approach is to start the typing with an apostrophe (single
quote). This tells Excel that the data is text and not to make any
adjustments.

The single quote does not actually appear in the cell, but is visible in the
formula bar.
--
Gary''s Student - gsnu2007i


"John Corbin" wrote:

> Hi
>
> I am having troubles with formatting cells in EXCEL 2003.
>
> I have a column of many hundreds of rows lthat contain data like
> this:
>
> 01Jan12
>
> on fist glance this looks like a date but it really is not.
>
> EXCEL on the other automatically assumes it is a date and formats as
> such.
>
> 2001-Jan-12
>
> I have tried formatting as text, General and even experimented with
> custom formats to no avail.
>
> In the same column I have
>
> 03Mar1543
>
> Which is dispolayed exactly as is.
>
> How can I get EXCEL to simply display data like 01Jan12 exactly as is?
>

On May 19, 3:38*pm, Gary''s Student
<GarysStud...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> You must format the cell as Text BEFORE typing any information into it. *An
> alternative approach is to start the typing with an apostrophe (single
> quote). *This tells Excel that the data is text and not to make any
> adjustments.
>
> The single quote does not actually appear in the cell, but is visible in the
> formula bar.
> --
> Gary''s Student - gsnu2007i
>
>
>
> "John Corbin" wrote:
> > Hi
>
> > I am having troubles with formatting cells in EXCEL 2003.
>
> > I have a column of many hundreds of *rows lthat contain data like
> > this:
>
> > 01Jan12
>
> > on fist glance this looks like a date but it really is not.
>
> > EXCEL on the other automatically assumes it is a date and formats as
> > such.
>
> > 2001-Jan-12
>
> > I have tried formatting as text, General and even experimented with
> > custom formats to no avail.
>
> > In the same column I have
>
> > 03Mar1543
>
> > Which is dispolayed exactly as is.
>
> > How can I get EXCEL to simply display data like 01Jan12 exactly as is?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

OK... Thanks

I am cutting and pasting from a site into a worksheet...

Formatting as text before hand does not work.

is there a custom format that I can set up ?

On May 19, 1:25*pm, John Corbin <JohnHabs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I am having troubles with formatting cells in EXCEL 2003.
>
> I have a column of many hundreds of *rows lthat contain data like
> this:
>
> 01Jan12
>
> on fist glance this looks like a date but it really is not.
>
> EXCEL on the other automatically assumes it is a date and formats as
> such.
>
> 2001-Jan-12
>
> I have tried formatting as text, General and even experimented with
> custom formats to no avail.
>
> In the same column I have
>
> 03Mar1543
>
> Which is dispolayed exactly as is.
>
> How can I get EXCEL to simply display data like 01Jan12 exactly as is?

Try formating the cells that you will be pasting into as text first,
then paste into them using 'Paste Special... > Values'