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What Function Does an Apostrophe Serve in Date Format?

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    What Function Does an Apostrophe Serve in Date Format?

    There is a spreadsheet I use at work where we are told to use an apostrophe before the date to prevent the function bar from converting the dd/mm/yy to dd/mm/yyyy. Why does the apostrophe do this?

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    Forum Guru benishiryo's Avatar
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    Re: What Function Does an Apostrophe Serve in Date Format?

    hi Oleschool, welcome to the forum. please do not do that, unless you have no use for the dates. the apostrophe makes it a text. like if you put
    '012
    it will appear as it is. but if you plainly put it as
    012
    it will appear as 12. Dates are actually stored as numbers in Excel & are very useful when you use formulas with it. as a text, it'll be much harder. it takes 1 more extra step, but type it as you normally do & custom format cells to "dd/mm/yy". my preference though, is to write as
    1Feb12
    it's hard to know if 1/2/2012 is 1st Feb 2012 or 2nd Jan 2012

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    Re: What Function Does an Apostrophe Serve in Date Format?

    So the apostrophe turns the numbers to text.Is this right? I've been trying to format the cells properly but my spreadsheets get sent back to me because I haven't inserted the apostrophe.Its frustrating to say the least.

  4. #4
    Administrator FDibbins's Avatar
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    Re: What Function Does an Apostrophe Serve in Date Format?

    yes, that is correct. the cell no longer has a value (date) in it, it has text in it, and as such, cannot be used as-is in formulas (not a good thing)
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    Re: What Function Does an Apostrophe Serve in Date Format?

    Thank you.How do I set this post as resolved?

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