How To Change A Date To A Number In Excel

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Faysal Farooqui

You need to change the cell formatting as Date. To do this follow the below steps:

- Click the cell to Select it. Or Select the entire Row/Column.

- Press Ctrl+1 it will show a Format Cells dialog box.

- From Numbers tab Click on Date and Select a format and then Click Ok.

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Thanks

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Hi Faysal

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, this does not work.

Even after changing the format to date (which it was already on before excel changed this), it remains in the 43321 format.

Incidentally, the change occurs when I'm typing and accidentally press wrong key - what that key is, I don't know!

Thanks again.

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Reverse by

Ctrl + `

Or click the "show formulas" icon on the formula auditing tab (depending on your version of Excel

What you have done is select "show formulas"

Ron

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Faysal Farooqui

- The shortcut key was Ctrl+Shift+! for Number format.

- Does your "Show Formula" option activate from Formula | Show Formula? If yes then Click again on it.

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Thanks

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Hi Ron

Ctrl + `

This works but it reformats all the column widths - is there another way to do it without incurring this side effect?

Thanks

Will

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Hey Will00001. In Excel, dates are numbers. January 1, 1900 is 1. January 2, 1900 is 2. Sometimes when you type a date, it becomes a number. You typed a number and it turned into a date. Select the range and use accounting, comma, or currency.

If you typed dates, and they became numbers, select the range and use a date format like short date.

Chris Menard

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Hi Chris

Thanks - this does not work though :(

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I don't think there is.

When you first accidentally typed the Ctrl + `, and it executed "show formulas", it widened the column widths. When you now hide the formulas, the column widths revert.

But so long as you don't accidentally choose "show formulas" again, it shouldn't change anymore.

You could probably write (or record) a VBA macro to format the column widths the way you want; or you could do an "auto-fit" if that seems appropriate. But if you have custom widths, a VBA macro might be the safest way to go.

Ron

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siddeshwarasiddesh

Sometime excel changes the dates eg 30/8/2018 to a number eg 43321

There is no way to change this back to a date. Even if you notice it straight away and press undo.

In the dialog box it still says that the date is int he 30/8/2018 format even though in the cell is 43321.

**EDIT This usually happens when I am typing and I press a wrong combination of keys and suddenly all the dates' change formats**

Please help!!

How do I reverse this and get the cell value back to the date?

Thank you.

Will

siddeshwara

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Thank you.

I am not sure of the original keys I pressed to get into the situation; however, it does not widen the column initially - they stay exactly as they are.

When I reverse the process - then it narrows the column widths.

Are there any ways to prevent the original (date to number) error from happening in the first place? Perhaps by turning off formulas?

And do you have any other ideas for a solution?

Best wishes

Will

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