Why do I have to press enter for formatting change to take effect?

It's difficult to tell from a picture. However, I would guess that the "dates" are not really dates but text masquerading as dates. Assuming the format is/was General (or Text) and the contents look like a date, that would be the case. Changing the format an then re-committing the data forces Excel to convert the content to a true date.

Regards, TMS

Originally Posted by OldManExcellor

Is there a faster way for me than to go into each cell and press enter?

Perhaps select column, ctrl+h, replace - with -
Or you may try Data - Text to columns and choose Delimited, then Date YMD format in step 3.

You're welcome.



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