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
    2015-08-11T14:39:56+00:00

    Hi Ron,

    This of course works, but it means that every time I want to look at the file, I have to import it, and if modified, save it into a new file. Seems to me it would be less effort for MS to just make the auto formatting optional.

    Changing the file type from .csv to .txt, on the other hand, does not work for me, since .txt is by defaut opened with Notepad and "open with" Excel just opens it right away properly (well properly, except for the delicate problem this is all about).

    Thanks for your time and workaround!

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-11T14:36:24+00:00

    Hi chemcal,

    I will try this as soon as I find out how to make this code into a macro. My VBA days are about 12 years past.

    Thanks a lot.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-08-11T11:26:45+00:00

    None of us work for MS, and cannot change the way the program works.  However, for your particular problem, a solution that has worked in your situation is to actually do an IMPORT and not OPEN the file.  In versions of Excel from 2007, this can be done by navigating to the DATA ribbon.  Under the CONNECTIONS tab (if I recall correctly), there will be a selection of something like "from text file".  Select this, then navigate to your .CSV file.  When you select that file, the "text import wizard" will open and you will have the option of selecting the column with the CAS ID's to be imported as text before Excel works "its magic" and changes the data to dates.

    Another option would be to change your file type (file suffix in Windows Explorer), from .csv to .txt.  This will also force opening of the text import wizard.

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