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
    2014-08-19T01:16:16+00:00

    Here is another alternative if you need to keep the data the same as I have for Ethernet ports:

    May be good beforehand to select both columns and format as Text fields.

    Excel>DATA[tab]>TEXTtoColumns[button]>FixedWidth[NEXT]>DataPreview(divide where desired)[NEXT]>

    In Data Preview, LeftCol is highlighted select "Text" radio button.  Next under Data Preview, RightCol left click to become highlighted select "Text" radio button.[FINISH]

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-08-18T05:17:43+00:00

    I use a lot of codes many of which get converted to dates. I have therefore created a macro that check for these dates and converts it back to text. The problem is that every year I have to edit the macro to accommodate the change in the year.

    Hi Alphamuz,

    If you post your code, I am sure that it can be adapted to handle the year change.

    ===

    Regards,

    Norman

    I give below an extract from the macro. I repeat the code for all the corrections that I have to make numbering about 20.

    Cells(ACRW, ACCLM).Select

    While ActiveCell.Value <> ""

        If ActiveCell.Value = 41932 Then

            ActiveCell.Value = "'10-20"

        End If

        ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select

    Wend

    Cells(ACRW, ACCLM).Select

    While ActiveCell.Value <> ""

        If ActiveCell.Value = 41963 Then

            ActiveCell.Value = "'11-20"

        End If

        ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select

    Wend

    End Sub

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-08-17T18:12:58+00:00

    I use a lot of codes many of which get converted to dates. I have therefore created a macro that check for these dates and converts it back to text. The problem is that every year I have to edit the macro to accommodate the change in the year.

    Hi Alphamuz,

    If you post your code, I am sure that it can be adapted to handle the year change.

    ===

    Regards,

    Norman

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