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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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.)

Was this answer helpful?

60+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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:¬)

Was this answer helpful?

40+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

311 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2015-09-01T01:32:05+00:00

    Although the apostrophe prefix may solve most situations, the way Excels handles "text that seems like date" is not acurate nor reliable. If you enter '4/88 in cell A1 and 4/88 in cell A2, A1 is text and A2 is date but COUNTIF(A:A;A1) is equal to 2.

    The situation gets worse if you enter '4/15 and '1/4. This also counts 2 with d/m/y locale settings, but will count 1 with m/d/y. This has been a source of unpleasant surprises and severe errors.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-25T15:01:38+00:00

    Why on earth has this garbage response been up-voted? It IS an autocorrect issue, excel 2003 and older never edited the raw data like it does now. It's not that cells are automatically being formatted as date, the raw data is being changed from e.g. characters "mar5" into "38412," and that number is then formatted into a date (March-05).

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2015-08-24T14:04:57+00:00

    I found one solution.   I encountered a problem in which Excel would not save the date as a true date format such as 8/24/15.   After I entered the desired date as 8/24/15, saved the file, closed the file, then opened the file, the date would revert to raw numbers and would NOT appear as 8/24/15.   I identified the problem as I had originally saved the excel file in Excel 2010, which worked properly and saved the date format as 8/24/15, but after I saved the same file as an Excel 2003 - 2007 file the date format did not remain as 8/24/15 and reverted to a number format.  I created a new Excel 2010 file, copied all the data from the Excel 2003 - 2017 file, pasted it into the new Excel 2010 file and it again held the correct date format. 

           I think Excel is wonderful but at times it can also be crazier than a barn full of hoot owls. 

    I hope this helps.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments