Dates older/new with IF

[KevinVA]

This should be sooooo simple I am embarassed to ask. I have a set of dates in a colum and I want to put a 1 or a 2 in another column depending on if a that date is older/newer than X. Here are the actuals:

Column A:
Starting row is 2
10/30/2009
6/30/2008
2/15/2009
11/6/2009
6/20/2008
8/21/2008
7/1/2010

My key date is 8/1/2009. So I enter =IF(A2=<"8/1/2009",1,2) but it puts 1's in everything except for the last 2 and for those it puts the 2. I've tried it without the quotes, using an absolution reference (I.E. =IF(A2=<$A$1,1,2) and a bunch of other stuff but it just won't work. I have done a lot more complex stuff than this and I can't believe it won't work..LOL.....someone help an obviously brain-dead guy???..Kevin

 

[texasalynn]

I saw a similiar question the other day and I think this is what did the trick
=IF(A2<=("8/1/2009")+0,1,2)

 

[KevinVA]

Thanks for the quick response. If I use > it returns 1's for everything and < returns 2's for everything...LOL...what a fun day here...(...thanks again for trying to help out...Kevin

 

[texasalynn]

weird because when I tested it seemed correct

Book1
	A	B	C	D
2	10/30/2009	2
3	6/30/2008	1
4	2/15/2009	1
5	11/6/2009	2
6	6/20/2008	1
7	8/21/2008	1
8	7/1/2010	2
Sheet1

are you sure the dates are really dates? Not text

 

[KevinVA]

Someone beat me to the response, and YES it works..LOL. I was doing a sort for something else and xls yelled about the formatting not being right (some numbers are formatted as text). The problem was that this sheet is the output from a database pulll and all the entries have ="xxxx" instead of just the data (xxxxx). I removed the =" stuff and it worked great.
Thanks for the help.
Kevin