QUESTION
Keely is trying to merge 2 lists and the Excel date format is different between the 2 lists.
- List 1: Date and Time in one cell
- 3/14/2011 11:20 AM
- List 2: Date only
- 3/14/2011
What’s the deal?
ANSWER
We can solve this formatting issue by just going to:
- Home on the ribbon,
- Choosing the Number section
- Selecting the dropdown arrow
- Choosing either
- Short Date
- Long Date
On this screencast I go a little further and show more about how Excel handles dates because this issue around Excel, Dates and Times has shown up before.
Text & Date in Same Cell
Excel Keeps Turning My Data Into Dates
I can attest to this and similar challenges. I was writing nested IF statements, using Conditional Formatting, and scrubbing the messiest of the messy, and there would still be something date-related that would pop up and stall my big tricks. Excel formatting is something worth studying on its own. Excel date formatting is definitely a topic worthy of exclusive study.
So, check out the screencast:
NOTE: The 110 names for this demo were created by a Random Data Generator
Keely, I hope this answers your questions.
Everyone, thanks for watching and checking out the DataScopic blog. People are telling me that they appreciate these personalized responses to real questions. So, please, send in your questions via the contact page. Leave comments and questions down below … and whatever you do in this life, please keep your data clean! And I’ll help you.
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