Stop auto correction of number into a date

Anonymous
2010-04-09T11:08:55+00:00

When i work with excel, i do data entry, some of the numbers that i type in can be interpenetrated  as dates. when this happens excel automatically changes the format of the cell from general, to date. i want to be able to stop this auto correction.

I know there are a number of ways to avoid this happening, but i am fed up with these methods. i simply what to turn the auto correct off, so that instead of what i type into the cell changing, what i type into the cell shows exactly what i typed in.

really hope there is someone out the who knows how to do this.

thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2010-04-09T17:09:58+00:00

If you format the cells as Text, all entries will be entered as text

(leading zeroes will be retain, date-like values won't be converted to dates, etc)

...CTRL+1 (to view the formatting dialog window)

...Select: Number_tab...Category: Text

That should resolve most (but not all) of the problem.

Does that work for you?

Ron Coderre

Microsoft MVP - Excel (2006 - 2010)

P.S. If any post answers your question, please mark it as the Answer (so it won't keep showing as an open item.)

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Anonymous
2010-04-09T16:55:47+00:00

Tim

I understand your frustration but this is not an autocorrect issue. 

Typing in 1/5 will automatically be recognised as a date as that is what it is unless... you signify that it is a formula and you expect the answer 0.2 to appear or it is a text item in which case you must preceed the data with a ' apostrophy.

In signifying the that the item is text you will have a data item which is left aligned, as all text is by default.  All other items in this column (even if purely numeric such as product codes) should aligned left.  Product codes though numeric should never be treaded like numbers, if you do, then expect issues.  Telephone numbers are similarly not true numbers, if they were treated as such, leading zeros would be dropped.

Though the whole idea of having to type in that extra character of ' is a pain to remember, it will make your data more acurate, reliable and portable.

Pat PS If you found this useful please vote. Thank you:¬)

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-11-27T02:47:57+00:00

    Glad to hear from a fellow survivor... ;-)

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-11-25T11:00:16+00:00

    Pleased to crack you up...

    But I essentially agree with you. My problems were highlighted precisely because I am migrating things from Excel being used as a database to a database. That migration has taken massively longer than it should because the data has been altered by passage through multiple versions of Excel. Even though the original (perhaps even Excel 98) had the fields marked as text over the years and versions the user-applied format has been disrespected because Excel knows best.

    The root causes are clearly that: one Excel is easily available; two it does come with clear warnings that it is not a safe place to put data; three Access or another database is / was not typically available or familiar to the administrators who start a process.

    I still find it "amusing" that if I enter 12-2-9016 Excel is confident I mean a date in 7000 years from now, whereas if I tell it that 12-2-1889 is a date that is utterly incomprehensible to it. Time started on 1st Jan 1900.

    So maybe I find myself wanting Excel always to store what was entered, exactly as it was entered, and to give me options for how it represents it. So that 12-2-9016 can be stored as precisely that text but I can ask Excel to render it as 12th Feb 9016 or to treat it as the number 2599109 in a calculation.

    In the meantime I have migrated to an XML database and have no reliance on anything to do with Microsoft for the particular business need.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-09-19T08:01:32+00:00

    Though the whole idea of having to type in that extra character of ' is a pain to remember, it will make your data more acurate, reliable and portable.

    --

    Patrick Rossiter

    Reply to MikeWhoCaresIfTheDisplayNameIsAlreadyInUse, Dave Peterson and Patrick Rossiter 

    There are a few places where I feel Microsoft is very paternalistic, assuming the user to be ignorant and will fall in with anything they offer. Otherwise it feels like Excel fundamentally caters for coders who are very familiar with their software and used to entering text exactly and absolutely correctly. In SolidWorks there are a few auto-formatting features as well, but a simple ctrl-z (undo) on the keyboard will undo the auto-format without deleting the entered value. This is a simple, easy, quick and intuitive solution, even for relative newbies. Please add the to Excel, Mr Microsoft!

    PS: Yes, I too harbour some resentment towards MS. Thanks for the kind, helpful replies.

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