Date not formatting correctly

Originally Posted by loginjmor

Hi -

Excel treats dates as a number starting with 1/1/1900 as the number 1, and counts up from there. So today's date is March 6, 2017 which is 42800 days after 1/1/1900. That's why when you paste a date to a cell that's formatted as a number you get a 5 digit number, like 42800. Excel does this so you can do math with dates and do comparisons of which date is later or earlier than another date.

Hope that helps.

So any suggestions on how I could paste the values in the cell as text? The dates are linked to mapping software and the dates print at the bottom of the map to show when it was last revised. The problem is the map software displays the 5 digit number instead of the date. I just want the dates listed as text so the map software will display them correctly on the map printout. It's nice to understand why it shows a 5 digit number now though.