I put 10-24 into a cell, it comes out as 41206.

[Garren1013]

I have a number cell that I want to put 10-24 into, however everytime that I do, it changes to 41206. I want it to say 10-24. How do I fix this? I have this already typed in other number cells and it's fine, but when I change this specific one, it does this.

[daddylonglegs]

Excel interprets 10-24 as a date (October 24th in the current year) so it changes it to that date (41206 represents that date). If you want it to stay as 10-24 then either pre-format the column or range as text (using formatting) or enter with a preceding apostrophe like '10-24. Excel won't display the ' - it tells excel to treat the entry as text

[Moo the Dog]

If the other cells show 10-24 they are likely formatted as 'Text' cells, or they were entered as: '10-24.

Try changing the format of the cell to Text and see if that works.

- Moo

* Daddylonglegs-fastfingers beat me to it.

[FDibbins]

excel is seeing 10-24 as a date (oct 24). put a ' in front, can you leave out the space?

[Garren1013]

Ok, that worked, thanks.

[FDibbins]

you'r welcome. If this answered your question, please take a moment to mark the thread as "solved" - it helps keep things neat and tidy lol, and consider adding the reputation to those that helped (see points 2 & 3 below)