Number dash number interpreted as Date

Hello,

When I click in a cell and type for instance, 8-17, and hit enter, excel interprets this as August 17th, 2018 and automatically completes my entry as 8/17/2018. Sometimes this is a convenient thing, but it can be annoying if I want the cell to just contain the string of characters "8-17".

Of course, if I type 17-8, excel doesn't change my entry because there isn't a month corresponding to the number 17. Also, I realize I can just type an apostrophe in front ('8-17) to prevent excel from interpreting/converting 8-17 as a date, but that's annoying.

Does anyone know of a setting or some way of being able to type 8-17 in a cell without excel forcing it to be a date?

Format the cell as text

Of Course!!! Thanks so much Fluff13! I don't know why I didn't think to try that.

You're welcome & thanks for the feedback