Unwanted Change to Date Formatting

[SusaninHouston]

I'm an experienced Excel user running into an annoying little problem in some of the models I've built. I can't seem to find any connection between when it happens and when it doesn't...

The problem is, a number that has been formatted in a Numeric format in a locked cell in a password-protected worksheet suddenly changes to a Date format.

I've never seen it happen on my own computer in a model that I personally am using, but I have seen that it has happened numerous times in models that I wrote and support.

As a developer, it s my habit to format every cell that I use (rarely General or Text), and almost never to format cells I don't use (entire columns, rows or sheets). So these cells - the ones that changed - were definitely formatted.

But they appear to change themselves -- Any clues?

My on-line searches just get me a primer on how to format numbers...

 

[SusaninHouston]

Anyone?

 

[SusaninHouston]

Everyone stumped?

 

[SusaninHouston]

Still hoping...

 

[SusaninHouston]

Still looking for even one good answer...

 

[SusaninHouston]

Anyone?

 

[SusaninHouston]

Stumped?

 

[venkat1926]

did you try re installing excel? sometime back I had some other problem. re installing helped

 

[SusaninHouston]

As noted in both posts that explained the problem "it has never occured on my PC" -- so no, I have not reinstalled Excel. As nearly all of my clients are non-technical, asking *them* to reinstall Excel just to see if it made a difference would be a very last resort...

 

[Jonmo1]

See if this helps.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ork-book/1ae533af-ecee-41fa-866a-2590343a111d

 

[SusaninHouston]

Thank you JonMo - That was definitely on track.

Though most of the 'causes' they allege (not base-formatting, conditional formatting, cell styles) are things I've already ruled out... They list file sharing as a possible cause, but I've educated my clients NEVER to share my files, as file sharing has long been known to be problematic in locked worksheets with macros...

And their 'cures' seem to be nothing more than reformatting the cells back (sorry, but duh!)...

Guess it's just one of those Excel bugs...