Text To Date Conversion

[John Calder]

Hi

I run Excel 2000

I download information from a mainframe into Excel.

In cell F5 the data looks like this: 19.11.2007

This is formatted as text and is left aligned.

When I try to reformat it to a date (19/11/2007) it does not change.

I would like to have a formula in cell N5 that changes the original data to
a datevalue. (eg: 19/11/2007)

Thanks

[Dave Peterson]

If column F contains a lot of the "date" values, then you could:

Data|Text to columns
Fixed width (but don't have any separator lines!)
choose Date (dmy order)
and finish up

Then give the range the date format you like.

You could even do this for a single cell, but I'd just retype it as a real date.

John Calder wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> I run Excel 2000
>
> I download information from a mainframe into Excel.
>
> In cell F5 the data looks like this: 19.11.2007
>
> This is formatted as text and is left aligned.
>
> When I try to reformat it to a date (19/11/2007) it does not change.
>
> I would like to have a formula in cell N5 that changes the original data to
> a datevalue. (eg: 19/11/2007)
>
> Thanks

--

Dave Peterson

[John Calder]

Dave

Thanks for your prompt resonse. The data I download from the mainframe is
usually about 500 lines so Ideally what I was after was a formula that would
be copied down the length of the dtata.

I ended up using the following:

=IF(F5="","",VALUE(LEFT(F5,2)&"/"&MID(F5,4,2)&"/"&RIGHT(F5,4)))

This seems so work OK. Thanks very much for all your help.






"Dave Peterson" wrote:

> If column F contains a lot of the "date" values, then you could:
>
> Data|Text to columns
> Fixed width (but don't have any separator lines!)
> choose Date (dmy order)
> and finish up
>
> Then give the range the date format you like.
>
> You could even do this for a single cell, but I'd just retype it as a real date.
>
> John Calder wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > I run Excel 2000
> >
> > I download information from a mainframe into Excel.
> >
> > In cell F5 the data looks like this: 19.11.2007
> >
> > This is formatted as text and is left aligned.
> >
> > When I try to reformat it to a date (19/11/2007) it does not change.
> >
> > I would like to have a formula in cell N5 that changes the original data to
> > a datevalue. (eg: 19/11/2007)
> >
> > Thanks
>
> --
>
> Dave Peterson
> .
>