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

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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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  2. Anonymous
    2015-04-19T23:42:10+00:00

    You said automatically recognized, we say automatically formatted. It is not just recognized as a date, it is changed to that format. The simple (and most helpful) version of your answer would be, No, there is no way at this time to stop auto-correction of a number into a date. The detailed background information and work-arounds provided is all well and good, but please try to start with a clear and direct answer at the beginning. Thank you!

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-04-17T13:15:11+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

    I had that problem when I tried to remove the word "Total" from a field that had a ID number that looked like a date. See column T for the "before". 

     I have a simple and easy solution, that resolved this problem for 11,000 records with mixed conversion problems in less than a minute using KuTools, an excel Add-on.

    I used the Text menu and added the ' in front of each record in column T,  PRIOR to removing the word "TOTAL" ,   Then I did Find and replace and removed the word, and the Autoformat did not occur again.   this solution will save you all a lot of trouble.    

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