Excel changes date formats

Question

I run a process to produce a rather large CSV file of data. Sometimes I find it helpful to open the CSV in excel, make changes manually, and then re-save. However, if ther

Answer 1

If you used the excel file version which is 2010 or later (not sure lower version), you can set up to use current operation-system date format or not in Excel/CSV file.

1. Right Click cell with date value (e.g. '9/12/2013') in CSV file and pop up the menu
2. Click 'Format Cells' and open a pop up screen
3. Go to 'Number' tab and you can see 'Date' was selected in 'Category' (left side) and 'Type' on the right side
4. Observed that there are two types of Date format (one is with () and another is not with ()). Read the comment there and you can find that you can use the date format which is not with date. It means that your changes to the CSV file will not be applied with your current operation-system date format. So, I think date format won't be changed in CSV file in this case.