Making the dates uniform in excel

[ak241987]

Dear All,

I have a large data set with 16,000 values. I need to extract the start date from the column. However, the dates are in different forms. Some have a single date wherein some contains ranges like 06-06-2019 - 08-06-2019. Is there a way wherein I can convert these into a single date with less time & efforts? Since the date format is not standard, flash fill does not work.

Would appreciate your help.

Regards,
AK

 

[DSCfromCFA]

G'day AK,

A bit more information is required for a definitive answer.

Are all the dates in the same sequence with the same dividers as you have written above? i.e dd-mm-yyy

With the ranged dates:
Do you want just the first date, or all the included dates?
Are all the ranged dates presented in the same format as you have given above?

If the dates are consistently written and you only need the first date of a range, then the answer is in the LEFT Function
=LEFT(A1,10).

A problem may arise if you have both Month-Day and Day-Month dates.

Cheers

shane