Is there a way to avoid the translation of a number into date, when pasting?

wardjdim

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2011
Messages
35
Hello all

When I am pasting a football score (e.g. "2-1") from an online score site to an excel cell, then it automatically translates it to a date ("02-Jan"). If I pre-select the cells that interest me and, after right-clicking on them, I select "format cells" and then "number" or "general, it again doesn't change the format and it requires manual change of the format on the cells. If I do that, it gives me the hypothetical day "40545" that the "02-Jan" would be

All I want is to paste the 2-1 and the system to automatically read it as "2-1" and nothing else. I have tried any way possible and it isn't working. On a previous version of Windows Vista, it was working with "Paste Special", but the whole process was taking even longer than formatting the cells manually after every paste

Right now I have Windows XP and Excel 2003 at work and I also have Windows 7 and Excel 2007 at home

Is there a way on either of the two system (preferably on both) to manage that without wasting my time in manually formatting the cells and then writing the correct score every time I am pasting something?

Thank you very much and I hope that there is some online plugin or something I haven't thought about
 

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I just tried formatting a cell to text, putting 2-1 in notepad, copying it from notepad and pasting it into the cell formatted as text. It showed as 2-1 as you want. Not setting the formatting to text before pasting made it the date (which you have discovered).

If you are copying from the website onto cells that are already formatted as text and you are still getting them appearing as dates, my advice would be to try pasting from the website to notepad, then copying from notepad and pasting into Excel. This should do the trick, as notepad kind of "sanitises" the data.
 
Upvote 0
In addition to formatting as text prior to the paste...

when you paste, do a right click - paste special - text
 
Upvote 0
Hi and thanks for your reply too

As I wrote previously, If I do that, it gives me the hypothetical day "40545" that the "02-Jan" would be

It is a rather desperate issue. I have read on other forums that it requires a macro, simply because Excel, as a program, translates a score only as date
 
Upvote 0
What happened when you try:
- formatting cell A1 as text
- typing 2-1 into Notepad
- selecting and copying the 2-1 from notepad
- right clicking cell A1 and pasting?

Does this work as a start?
 
Upvote 0
This works for me

Format destination Cell as Text
Copy the text from website 2-1
Right click destination cell - paste special - text - ok


If that doesn't work for you, can you post the link to the website you're copying the score from?
 
Upvote 0
Cheers for that ;)

So, it is "paste special" that makes the difference

I appreciate :)
 
Last edited:
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