Urgent Help with regards to Date cell values and format

[rv02]

Hi All
I have a spreadsheet whicj I need to do some analyis. I have a column which show the dates as below
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21
2014/12/21

These are not exported as dates, i think they are as texts format. I need to merge some cells but before I do that to create a unique value I need tihe dates above to be shown in the form of 21/12/2014 i.e. dd/mm/yyyy. As these are not in the dates format is there anyway I can flip the values around to the reuqired format

I need these urgently as I have over 20000 lines of data to compkare

Thanks

[alansidman]

Assume your data is in column A beginning with A1. In column B type = A1*1 and copy down, then reformat column if necessary.

[miloki]

Good Morning Rv02.

Along with the solution above, here is what you can do to format those dates.

You can easily format those cells to accept that data as a date, but depending on the version of excel you are using it will be in one of two ways. First, make a copy of the data or workbook to play with just in case. Highlight all of the dates you want to format and right click on them.

Click the Format cells option on the number tab there are multiple options for formatting. First look at the "Date" option. If there is a d/m/yyyy option you can select that one. (I dont have that option as a supported date format, but UK dates are different).

If that option isnt there, go to "Custom". In the block under "Type:", type in d/m/yyyy and hit OK.

To verify that this worked on all of your data (since you have thousands of cells it will be hard to eyeball) add a filter to the column of dates and hit the dropdown. You should see "Oldest to Newest" at the top and in the space below you should see years, months, dates and nothing else. Any cell that remains text will appear exactly as typed in the cell, ie: 6/4/1998 and separate from the dates.

If they are all dates then you should be good to go...but repost any further concerns you have.

Good luck and happy excelling!

[rv02]

this works absolutly fine.

Thanks you so much to both who replied

[Tony Valko]

Sometimes this will convert text dates into true numeric dates.

Select the range of cells in question
Goto the Data tab>Text to Columns
Just click Finish

Then you can apply the date format of your choice.