Whenever I try to paste the dates and times from one spreadsheet to another, the dates changes from 2008 to 2004. Why won't the dates just hold when I copy and paste from one doc to another. I have excel 2004 for Mac.
Seems that Excel for Mac uses a 1904 date system to calculate dates. Don't ask me why this is different, but you can change this for each file in the Preferences/Calculation pane. Simply uncheck the "1904 date system" setting.
I had the same issue, and this fixed it. Any idea how to make this a global change, since it seems that I can only change the active workbook preference and I will have this same issue on a continual basis.
For people that have the mac file only and don't have either a Mac or Excel for Mac.
I don't have one on hand so I had to save the file as CSV and then reopen it.
Make sure you chose the right date format - if you have hours/minutes/seconds you might lose them.
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do you know how to do it in new macs? cant find the calculation pane under preferences. thanks!