Typing 230713 into cell comes out as 01/09/2531 instead of 23/07/13 (dd/mm/yyyy)

[Janet UK]

Oh dear me, I don't know what has happened, but when I type a 6 digit date into Excel cells formatted to dd/mm/yyyy very strange dates are being displayed. Tried opening a new book - just the same result. Help appreciated. All is ok typing with the / in between but I don't usually have to do that. Regional settings have been checked and formatting etc. Really at a loss with this one. I hope someone can please shed some light on it.
Thank you for reading.

[tony h]

That's what comes from being in Norfolk !

Actually it is quite natural. Dates are a number of days offset from 1/1/1900. So 365 is the 1/1/1901. Your 230713 means 230713 days from the 1/1/1900 which ends up being in the year 2531.

try entering your date with the / seperators

[Janet UK]

Dear Tony H - thank you for the reply and I know Excel interprets numbers into dates etc - but I was sure that I have been typing a 6 figure date in previously without the need for the forward slashes - maybe I am having a 'Norfolk' moment and I never did. But surely to type dates in, having to enter the blinking slashes all the time is a pain, especially if cells are pre-formatted to date.

[Janet UK]

interprets - rather