Excel 07 Oddity - newly entered dates are turning into formulas - huh?

[jkalpus]

Greetings ...A client recently showed me an Excel 07 worksheet that's exhibiting really odd behavior. When a DATE is entered into a cell, either manually or with a function (Like 5/5/2001), the cell returns a decimal. For example: if you enter 5/5/2005 into a cell, you see this in the formula bar: =5/5/2005, which returns 0.000498753 in the cell - INSTEAD of the date! Where is this "=" sign coming from??? There isn't any code attached to the sheet, and all the options seems to be normalized. FYI, when other sheets are added to the workbook, they all behave normally.
Any clues? I'm stumped! - John

 

[indiantrix]

Although not currently at my XL2007 machine, from my (66-yr-old) memory, try this: Click the Office Button, then at the bottom of the dropdown click on Excel Options, then click on the Advanced group, and look for Transition Keys (or some such wording, with "Transition" in it. Change the setting here, and then test your sheet. Should do the trick.
Larry

 

[jkalpus]

Hi Larry ... yup, THAT did the trick! Thanks! Wouldn't you know it, that was the ONE thing I didn't try. I was reasonably sure the fix was somewhere in the Options menu. There's ole Lotus 1-2-3 back to haunt all of us. Thanks, again ... John

 

[indiantrix]

Thanks for the feedback; glad it worked for you! And welcome to the Board... Larry.