problem with dates in Excel 2004 MACSolved/Closed

Question

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

Szimitar · Answer

Found the answer.

There is a default setting in excel preferences to use 1904 date formatting.
Just uncheck that and dates are  the same
.

aquarelle · Answer

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

Howie · Answer

Awesome! I was just on the verge of having exploded head syndrome, when I found your solution doing a Yahoo search.

Thanks!

Bojangles · Answer

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 :)

Daisy · Answer

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.

Problem with dates in Excel 2004 MAC

5 responses

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