Cell won't change from date.

I'm trying to change a cell from date to general but when I move out of that cell it changes the numbers back to a date. I've tried changing the cell and the column to general but the cell changes back to date. Any suggestions? For some reason it reads the number I keep entering as a date and sets the cell as a date instead of the general which is what I want.

what values exactly are you trying to enter ?

on confirmation XL will generally try to be "helpful" and convert things it thinks are date entries to date - you may need to alter format to Text / Fraction etc prior to entering the values (not General) - or precede each entry with ' to enforce text though I would say Text/Fraction format likely to be preferable.

Re: triangle... if you go into Excel Options (either via Office icon or via ALT + T -> O), Formulas - see Error Checking section ... you can either disable in its entirety by unchecking "Enable background error checking" or you can disable just the "numbers stored as text" option below.