Keeping Excel from Changing Data to Dates

February 16, 2002 - by Juan Pablo Gonzalez

Angie asks:

We do Biomedical Research and we use Excel as our primary data editor. We need to enter into a cell things like 1-2 and 6-5. Yet, when we enter that, it turns it into a date like Jan-2 and Jun-5. We need to turn this off, and turning off the Autocomplete function does not do it. Have any ideas? Thanks!

Two options:

1. Format the Column (Or range) where you will input the data as TEXT before inputting the data.

2. Second, input the text with a ' starting, like this

   '1-2

and Excel won't translate it.