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: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2011-11-24T16:08:49+00:00

    In reply to Dave: We do pre-format the cells. Excel does not hold on to the formatting. We are using it for tracking apparel inventory and frequently use fractions which are still converted to dates.  When we enter 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 ect.  we never intend it as a date. 

    Below Kevin Svenningsen reads 11/4 as April 11th and I would read it as November 4th.

    My work around has been to put a period after any number that I do not want excel to change.

    The irritation comes when I have formatted the column:  forget to add the period and then try to edit the cell: THEN I have to clear the cell out, leave it alone, data enter some other cell(s), and then come back, format the original cell (the whole column) and can now add my data, for a while, without excel thinking it knows what I am doing better than I do.

    After 20 years of devout MSOffice use and countless upgrades: these 'little' things have cost me hundreds upon hundreds of hours in problem resolution.  That does not include educational hours learning the product. This has caused me to look else where. I am testing open office over the next month.  Data entry should not have to be a complex task.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2012-01-04T23:57:37+00:00

    This suggestion worked for me.  Numbers separated with a hyphen were autocorrecting to dates.  I spent hours on the microsoft tutorial disabling options in autocorrect and nothing worked.  I tried this simple suggestion and it worked!!!!  Thank you Patrick!

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2012-01-10T19:27:58+00:00

    Hi all,

    I have just been reading this any many other forums/posts about the problem of Excel autoformatting some sort of text string to a date.

    And yes, anywhere the "solution" is always to preformat the colums first (and I have actually seen quite many moderators and "experts" answering these posts getting quite offended when they are told, that it is not the solution asked for).

    I often handle large amount of data in Excel compatible formats (often csv files), and it really annoys me (maybe I'm a bit too sensitive here :-) that I always have to use the Import function and preformatting each colum in the process (instead of actually justing having the ability to prevent Excel from formatting my data).

    Yes, there may be alot of people just typing "11/4" for April 11th, but Excel is marketed as a professional tool too (and not just a tool for lazy home users), so I bet there is just as many people having data (or typing data) such as "4/88" "01-002" or whatever, which means EXACTLY "4/88" (e.g. packing quantities) or "01-002" (e.g. precise item number), who do NOT want this autoformatted (or whatever you choose to call the "feature").

    A really nice feature/function for these more professional/serious users (and yes, I know home users can be quite serious too :-) would be the ability to disable Excel's desire to autoformat data as a "service" (and so far I haven't found any answers in all these fine support forums, which explains how to do exactly that).

    Regards,

    Kevin

    Unfortunately formatting the columns as text doesn't help when using the "Text to Columns" feature. Convert the columns to text, select the data, and it converts to dates. It really stinks.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments