Making Date Field Text

[dloskot]

I have an interesting issue: I need to create an Excel spreadsheet with data to import to a database.
Some of the fields are dates and they need to be in the format yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss which is easy enough to to do in excel. However database import functions reads it as 4/20/2025 8:15:00 AM. If you save the file as CSV it outputs the date as 4/20/2025 8:15:00 AM.

I have read putting a single quote (') at the beginning of the field will tell excel to treat cell as Text. but if I do that it puts back to 4/20/2025 8:15:00 AM format.
I need to find a way to get these date fields to text fields without having to retype all of them in Text format. I have uploaded a sample.

Date to Text Sample.xlsx
	A	B	C
1	location	event_date	event_end_date
2	KAH Bay Area Warehouse	2025-03-18 10:15:00	2025-03-18 11:45:00
3	Greenbrook Elementary School	2025-03-20 08:15:00	2025-03-20 10:30:00
4	KAH Bay Area Warehouse	2025-03-22 10:00:00	2025-03-22 11:30:00
Event input to Event Booking

 

[Joe4]

If you format the it the way you want in Excel, then the CSV will be created in that EXACT same format.
Just don't make the mistake of trying to view the CSV in Excel - when you do that, Excel will automatically apply its own conversions on the data.
For this reason, whenever you want to truly view the contents of a CSV or any other Text file, NEVER open it in Excel.
Look at it in a Text Editor like NotePad to see what truly is in that file.

 

[dloskot]

If you format the it the way you want in Excel, then the CSV will be created in that EXACT same format.
Just don't make the mistake of trying to view the CSV in Excel - when you do that, Excel will automatically apply its own conversions on the data.
For this reason, whenever you want to truly view the contents of a CSV or any other Text file, NEVER open it in Excel.
Look at it in a Text Editor like NotePad to see what truly is in that file.

Thanks Joe4: I thought I had tried that and it didn't seam work. I tried it again and it worked as you described.