Data being changed to "DATES" automatically

**SLOWBRAH** · 12-17-2014, 05:23 PM

For some unknown reason many of my excel files are swapping all of the data over to "dates"... Why would this be happening?

**davesexcel** · 12-17-2014, 05:27 PM

Could you be missing a whole bunch of explaination?

Could you be refering to .csv files?

**SLOWBRAH** · 12-17-2014, 06:07 PM

All are .xls file. Sometimes the data is fine and others many of my Excel books are formated at dates.

**newdoverman** · 12-17-2014, 08:02 PM

The data is probably in a format that looks like a date to Excel...Something like the following where x is a digit: xx-xx-xx, x-x-xx, x-x-xxxx, x/x/xx, xx/xx/xx, xx/xx/xxxx . To avoid having the data being interpreted as a date, format the cells as text before entering or importing the data.