# symbol keeps showing up in cell when I type date

Can someone help me to figure this out? I use an excel spreadsheet to coordinate my colleague’s work shifts, but everytime I type a date in, it turns into # # # # # #. For example when I write 02/03/10 it becomes # # # # # #.

Can anyone help me fix this issue?

That doesn't help sadly. Any other ideas?

Originally Posted by NBVC

By any chance are you entering a dash in front of the date?

Can you show a picture of what is in the formula bar when you select that cell.

No dash in front of the date. I just type it like 07/02/10 and it shows up as # # # # # #.

Originally Posted by lynncrf

No dash in front of the date. I just type it like 07/02/10 and it shows up as # # # # # #.

Try widening the cell really, really, comically wide.

If that fails, right click on the cell, click format Cell, then in the "Number" tab, click on date, and select a different type.

Originally Posted by agentred

Try widening the cell really, really, comically wide.

If that fails, right click on the cell, click format Cell, then in the "Number" tab, click on date, and select a different type.

How do I do a screen shot of an excel spreadsheet? Formatting cell did not work sadly.

The screenshot won't work here. It allows me to paste it from Excel into paint, but after that .....nada. What am I doing wrong?

Nope, that won't work either. Oh well.... this # # # # # #. symbol problem is obviously not a very common issues.

This is probably happening because you have your date in this format (Assume today's date) 20121205 and then tried changing it to Date format.

I know this is a late post but if this helps someone who is having the same problem, by all means.

I recently came across this issue with a co-worker. Typing 3/1/2012 into the cell created ###### even with the cell width extremely wide and the type of data as Date.

The solution I found to work was this:

Find a cell that you can type in the date without it turning into ######, copy that cell. right click on the cell that is having the issue and paste the formatting of the known good cell. This fixed it for us so I hope it helps anyone else having this issue.