Some dates recognized as dates, some dates not recognized. Why?

Question

Here is a list of dates:

04-22-11
12-19-11
11-04-11
12-08-11
09-27-11
09-27-11
04-01-11

When you copy this list in Excel, some of th

Answer 1

A workaround for this problem consists in temporarily changing your regional settings, so the date format of the CSV imported file "matches" the regional settings one.

Open Office seems to work in a similar way for that issue, see: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=85898

Answer 2

Here is what worked for me on a mm/dd/yyyy format:

=DATE(VALUE(RIGHT(A1,4)),VALUE(LEFT(A1,2)),VALUE(MID(A1,4,2)))

Convert the cell with the formula to date format and drag the formula down.

Answer 3

Right-click on the column header and select Format Cells, the chose Date and select the desired date format. Those that are not recognized are ambiguous, and as such not interpreted as anything but that is resolved after applying formatting to the column. Note that for me, in Excel 2002 SP3, the dates given above are automatically and correctly interpreted as dates when pasting.

Answer 4

In your case it is probably taking them in DD-MM-YY format, not MM-DD-YY.

Answer 5

I come across this problem when I tried to convert to Australian date format in excel. I split the cell with delimiter and used the following code from split cells then altered the issue areas.

=date(dd,mm,yy)

Answer 6

It's not that hard...

Check out this forum post:

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/excel-not-recognizing-dates-dates-t3139469.html

The steps in short:

1. Select only the column of "dates"
2. Click Data > Text to Columns
3. Click Next
4. Click Next
5. In step 3 of the wizard, check "Date" under Col data format, then choose: "DMY" from the droplist.
6. Click Finish