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moriniaFlag for United States of America

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Converting a column that has mixed formatted fields to a column of all dates in Excel

Experts,

The attched file has a mixture of formats.  although they all appear to be dates, some are formatted dates that are actually a text field and the others are dates.

Can someon tell me how to create a column of all dates from these dates?
Mismatch-Dates.xlsx
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Haris Dulic
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Tj a

The easiest way is to create a new column of values. Just go into an empty column then do this:

=VALUE(A2)

and drag that down for every cell in your old date range. Now just select that cell range and click "format cells" then select date and pick a date format of your choosing.
See the file attached.
Mismatch-Dates.xlsx
Without use of a helper column, you can use the Text to Columns function.

Select the column and Start the TTC function on the Data tab:

Step 1 - Choose Delimited
Step 2 - Deselect all delimiter options
Step 3 -  Select Date and use dropdown to select the Date format of source data

Click Finish.

Thanks
Rob H
Another option:

Type 0 in a blank cell and copy to the Clipboard - Ctrl C
Select the range of dates and then Selecte the Paste Special window.
In the top pane choose Values and then in the middle section select Add
Click OK

This forces excel to re-evaluate the contents of the cells and adds 0 to them. The text cells will be converted to dates.

Thanks
Rob H