Formatting pre-existing dates.

[MikeyZ]

I have a column of dates.
Formatted as 6/14/2011

I highlite the section, change the format to 6/14, but the only way I can change it over is if I select the cell, hit F2, then enter. For each and every cell. There is an easier way but I forgot......

Pls help...

Mike

 

[Desu Nota from Columbus]

Try highlighting the entire column (by clicking A or B or C--whichever column the dates are in) and then selecting the format.

 

[Jonmo1]

Probably Data - Text to columns
Deliminated - next
next
Date - MDY
Finish


Hope that helps.

 

[MikeyZ]

jonmo: Yes I think that's it. Delimination... Yipeeeee

 

[Desu Nota from Columbus]

Jonmo1:

I often hear about text delimited--can you explain what this means/does?

 

[Norie]

Sounds like they might not be getting recognised as dates by Excel, until you do the F2 thing obviously.

If you want to change them to real dates there are a few things you could try.

One is to select an empty cell, copy it, select the range with the dates, goto Paste Special... and select Add from the Operation section.

If that works then you should be able to format all the dates in one go.

If it doesn't I'm sure someone else can suggest another approach.

 

[Jonmo1]

Jonmo1:

I often hear about text delimited--can you explain what this means/does?

In the most general sense....

Take this string

The brown fox jumped over the yellow fence

That is all in one cell.

So the common "delimiter" is a space.
there is a space between each word.

So if you do text to columns - delminated - and select space as the delimiter, it will split that cell into 8 cells, 1 for each word.


And you can use just about any character for a delimiter.

The|brown|fox|....

the delimiter is now the pipe symbol |



the Date function in text to columns really isn't delimited.
It's just a handy feature added by MS for dealing with Dates.

 

[Desu Nota from Columbus]

In the most general sense....

Take this string

The brown fox jumped over the yellow fence

That is all in one cell.

So the common "delimiter" is a space.
there is a space between each word.

So if you do text to columns - delminated - and select space as the delimiter, it will split that cell into 8 cells, 1 for each word.


And you can use just about any character for a delimiter.

The|brown|fox|....

the delimiter is now the pipe symbol |



the Date function in text to columns really isn't delimited.
It's just a handy feature added by MS for dealing with Dates.

I see. Thanks for the explanation.