Thanks. For those reading this, one of my mistakes was formating the cell as
General when I should have formatted it as Text.

Abbi

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

> If you're doing one cell, you can preformat the cell as text and then paste into
> the formula bar.
>
> If you're doing multiple cells, I'd paste into a text file (notepad), then
> file|open that text file.
>
> When you open the text file, you'll see the text import wizard popup. You can
> specify that you want certain fields brought in as text -- not General and not
> dates.
>
> Abbi wrote:
> >
> > I have a column of text that's in the style 1994/95, 1995/96, etc. When I
> > paste it into Excel, after setting the column to Format Cell General, the
> > entries beginning with 19 go in as text. That's what's supposed to happen.
> > But -- here's my problem -- the entries 2000/01, 2001/02, etc. go in as
> > dates. I can't fix this even by manually deleting the dates, resetting the
> > cell format to General, and TYPING in the characters. The cells above are
> > still showing as Format Cell General. The problem cells mysteriously change
> > from General to Custom.
> >
> > There must be some way to stop this 'helpful feature.' Any suggestions?
> >
> > Excel 2003.
>
> --
>
> Dave Peterson
>