Date Formatting

Haytham Amairah
Silver Contributor
Feb 12, 2018
Ok, I have another solution!

Get rid of the text format that I have suggested in the previous answer!

Take the dates which are formatted as MMMYY, and put them in Excel.

After Excel convert the years to days, you can fix that by using this formula

=DATE(20&DAY(A1),MONTH(A1),1)

The result of this formula is an actual date, not text!

Not you got the correct dates, but the format of them may not as you want (DMMMYY), but you can convert them to this format as follows:

Highlight them and press Ctrl+1.

Go to Custom category.

Put this format in the Type box: dmmmyy

Hit OK.
- A.J. Buck
  Copper Contributor
  Feb 12, 2018
  GREAT! that did what I want!
  
  The only difficulty now is ill have to create a new column in the table for the new values to apply to. Unless you know of a way I can run a script on a column without having the equations embedded in the cells themselves...
  
  Thank you very much for your help!
  - Haytham Amairah
    Silver Contributor
    Feb 13, 2018
    I have another solution for you to fix the column of date in place without using a formula in a helper column!
    
    You can use it if the existing dates that you have are already formatted as texts in this format (MMMYY)!
    
    Please find the attached file, and download it!
    
    It contains a macro that you can run to fix the column of dates in place.
    
    To use it, highlight the dates and go to View >> Macros >> View Macros.
    
    Find the macro that named "convert", and then hit Run button.
    
    Remember to highlight the dates before you run the macro.
Carla de Lange
Copper Contributor
Feb 12, 2018
The formula is =text(A2,"ddmmmyyyy")

Look to text in A2 and change to text

d=day

m=month

Y=year

or you make "dd-mmm-yyyy"

always use " to start,

A.J. Buck wrote:

I did that, and it converts to text fine.

I think I should have gave more info.

The report I am working with is a list of individuals, training courses, and due dates. The due dates are expressed in a general formatted column as mmmyy, with no day. I am trying to create a product that I can copy the data into, and have a series of conditional formatting and other things tell me who is due/overdue for what so I can more easily see who I need to schedule for what.

If the dates are not in a date format excel will recognize, this will not work.

If I were to try to change APR19 to a date format excel would think 19 is the day when it is the year. What would help the most is if I can somehow convert APR19 (along with all the other dates in the column (IE: MAR18, DEC17, etc.)) to 1APR19 (and 1MAR18, 1DEC17, etc) I could make progress.

Converting general to text doesn't really help. Thank you for the reply though. I didn't know CTRL+1 was a shortcut for Format...I will definitely be using that in the future. :)

and " to end the name
- A.J. Buck
  Copper Contributor
  Feb 12, 2018
  Thank you. Unfortunately that still results in excel thinking that the 19 in APR19 is the day (remember format is mmmyy).
  
  I need to format an entire column (up to 8,000 cells) which have text in them in a mmmyy format.
  
  I need to convert that text to the examples below
  
  APR19 to 1 APR 2019
  
  MAR18 to 1 MAR 2018
  
  JUN17 to 1 JUN 2017
  
  Is there a way I can append a 1 to the beginning of every cell? That might simplify my problem
  - Haytham Amairah
    Silver Contributor
    Feb 12, 2018
    If the existing dates that you have are already formatted as texts in this format (MMMYY) then you can append 1 to each one of them by using this formula:
    
    =DATE("20"&RIGHT(A1,2),MONTH(A1),1)
    
    And then the apply the Custom format that I have suggested in the previous answer!
    
    Good luck!

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