Imported text converts to dates!

[Swyck@nospam.com]

When I import a string that can be interpreted as a date, e.g. 1/4 or
6/12, Excel converts it into a date. That's not what I want it to
do. I want to keep the original string. It's NOT a date! 1/4 means
1/4, not 1/4/2005 or even .25.

I've tried to google for the answer but didn't find any usable
suggestions.

Its not my data I'm importing so I can't just put "" around the
strings if they're not there. I've seen this with both copy and paste,
and web queries. I just can't find anything in Options, and Web Query
Options dialog box doesnt have anything about importing data.

Any help would be appreciated.

Swyck

[Peo Sjoblom]

How do you import it, if it is a txt file the text import wizard should open
and you can click next twice and under column data format select text and it
will come in as txt, if not imported as txt file rename it to *.txt and it
will trigger the text import wizard

--
Regards,

Peo Sjoblom

(No private emails please)


<Swyck@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:gl0q915lrfq9q6vk129pm4048mlq5q9h4o@4ax.com...
> When I import a string that can be interpreted as a date, e.g. 1/4 or
> 6/12, Excel converts it into a date. That's not what I want it to
> do. I want to keep the original string. It's NOT a date! 1/4 means
> 1/4, not 1/4/2005 or even .25.
>
> I've tried to google for the answer but didn't find any usable
> suggestions.
>
> Its not my data I'm importing so I can't just put "" around the
> strings if they're not there. I've seen this with both copy and paste,
> and web queries. I just can't find anything in Options, and Web Query
> Options dialog box doesnt have anything about importing data.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Swyck