Formatting Cells into Date Format

[Glutamine83]

Hi everyone, first time on the board

I exported some dates from Lotus into excel, and everything went ok. I want to calculate the number of days in between particular dates and I've been under the assumption that as long as the dates are in date format, you can just subtract to calculate differences.

However, when I highlight the dates, and format the cells to the date format, nothing happens. But, when I click the cell and put my cursor in it, then press enter, it changes to the date format.

Is there a way to get excel to automatically refresh these date format changes without me having to manually click off on 1800 dates?

 

[nevillestoke]

Welcome to The Board

Make sure under Tools | Options | Calculation that the Auto Calculation is checked - you might want to highlight all cells and press F9 to re-calculate

If this is already taken care of - highlight the range containing the dates, format the cells to general, and then repeat the process, formatting to the desired date format.

Good Luck.

Neville.

 

[yoelpa]

use this formula =DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1),DAY(A1))

 

[Mark W.]

Perhaps your dates were imported as text. Use the Data | Text to Columns... menu command to convert them to date values.