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
    2014-04-21T12:21:25+00:00

    Just found an interesting comment in a related thread:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-excel/how-to-prevent-excell-from-converting-numeric-text/16b80a11-edea-41ee-86c5-ce9ad0f99e5f

    According to Mike H. (a moderator posting to the thread linked above), this thread which we are posting to has been viewed more than 30,000 times

    Interestingly enough, Danny Khen - Excel Program Manager posted to the thread linked below, which only has 13 replies, including three I just posted.  http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-excel/stop-auto-correction-and-auto-formatting/5cbde7cd-6ead-461b-80e3-ac0e5fb458f0?page=1

    -Jeremy

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-21T11:17:50+00:00

    I got a chuckle out of your analogy; this is a first for this thread.  Thanks

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-04-20T18:53:49+00:00

    “Does anybody know where to post that MS Office people will see this for sure?”

    Occasionally frustration and stubbornness get the best of my common sense, so two days, and four hours later, and getting ping-ponged all around Microsoft, the answer is no, MICROSOFT DOES NOT CARE WHAT ITS CUSTOMERS WANT.  I was referred to answers.microsoft.com, but we have all seen the lack of response here.  There is apparently no way to let Microsoft know about ways it can improve its software.  There is a website http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lcris/archive/2008/02/07/how-to-request-features-in-microsoft-products.aspx but apparently they only accept suggestions on specific software, and Excel isn't one of them.  

    On the good news front, I finally hit upon an analogy that seemed to catch the attention of the many technical and customer service representatives I talked with.  I asked them how many times they answered the phone in a typical week.  Then I asked them how annoying it would be, that if every time they answered the phone, the phone automatically gave a wrong greeting, something that they didn't want like "whaddya want? instead of "hello, how may I help you" and that they could avoid that greeting by typing a series of commands, but that would have to type that command every single time they answered the phone.  

    Microsoft: I beg you. Please provide the option to turn off autocorrection of numbers.

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