Excel automatically converts numbers to a date

[rinconmike]

I have an excel 2007 workbook with many sheets. all of a sudden, if I had cells formatted as general, all the cells were changed to a date format.

Any idea why this happened? Only thing I can think of is I imported a sheet form another workbook into the workbook in question.

All data was fine, but I had to go back and change everything back. Almost like the default type changed from general to date.

thanks,

Mike

[btv2014]

Did you ever figure this out? I got the same issue now, with 2 different files - it happened to one file in 2012, and just now with another file. The default formatting seems to be Time, and every number that was unformatted (General) is now somehow converted to Time. How can I change the default number format back to General?

Thanks!

[aworfolk]

If You add somthing like : or - Or / Excel will default the formating to aspecific format that most of time is what that caracter is refering to either change the formating after the fact or try adding a ' first when you input the iformation that will tell excel to make it text and wont change it.

[FDibbins]

hi btv and welcome to the forum

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