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
    2013-02-06T20:55:12+00:00

    Excel 2013

    File - Options - Advanced:

    All the way in the bottom you have two checkboxes (i have to translate the options as i am running a localized language):

    • Alternate Formula Evaluation
    • Alternate Formula Typing

    Check both, and as i said, they might be called something different, as i just translated the text to English.

    This worked for me when pasting a rather large list with values that turned into dates.

    /K

    i do not see this in Excel 2010, good to know it is coming back, this option was available in 2003 and earlier versions, it just skipped a generation.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-06T11:50:55+00:00

    I'm using Excel 2007, so this doesn't help.  Thanks anyway.  I guess I need to look at Open Office Calc - pity, for I actually like Excel a lot - mostly.  But Microsoft's "we know better than our professional users" attitude would drive anyone up the wall.

    I'll repeat my question about MS - does anyone there read these postings?

    Ian

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-02-06T08:39:34+00:00

    Excel 2013

    File - Options - Advanced:

    All the way in the bottom you have two checkboxes (i have to translate the options as i am running a localized language):

    • Alternate Formula Evaluation
    • Alternate Formula Typing

    Check both, and as i said, they might be called something different, as i just translated the text to English.

    This worked for me when pasting a rather large list with values that turned into dates.

    /K

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    0 comments