Problem with dates in Excel 2004 MAC

Solved/Closed
Szimitar - Dec 18, 2008 at 11:30 AM
 Daisy - Jul 19, 2010 at 03:26 PM
Hello,

I'm working in MAC OSX
MS Office 2004 11.5.3 (081114)

I have two workbooks opened at the same time.
I copied 54K+ rows of data from one sheet from WBK-A into sheet in WBK-B.

Column C has date values (unformatted so they look like integers)

Both sheets contain a cell with value 39782.

When I format that cell in WBK-A as Date:MM/DD/YY it displays 11/30/08
When I format that cell in WBK-B as Date:MM/DD/YY it displays 12/01/12

This happens on many cells not just this one. It does not happen in the first few rows.

My head is about to explode but I know this is either a bug or the result of some
odd (hidden to me) inconsistency in settings between these workbooks or sheets.

Any help much appreciated.
thanks,
Sz
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5 responses

Szimitar Posts 1 Registration date Wednesday December 17, 2008 Status Member Last seen December 18, 2008 6
Dec 18, 2008 at 12:10 PM
Found the answer.

There is a default setting in excel preferences to use 1904 date formatting.
Just uncheck that and dates are the same
.
0
aquarelle Posts 7140 Registration date Saturday April 7, 2007 Status Moderator Last seen March 25, 2024 491
Dec 18, 2008 at 03:37 PM
Hi,
Thank you for coming back to give us the solution you have found. You can be sure that this will be helpful.
Best regards
0
Awesome! I was just on the verge of having exploded head syndrome, when I found your solution doing a Yahoo search.

Thanks!
0
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.
0

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Hi,

Was just reading this post and thought I would add my 2c's. If you're struggling with this in excel chances are you will struggle with t all over the place.

In OS X Go to system preferences>date & time. Hit the format tab. Then click on international settings. Check out whether its US. Then if there is change it to your reigon. Fixed....across the board :)
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