• chiliedogg@lemmy.world
    5·
    3 months ago

    I have the opposite problem. Half the time no matter how much I change the formatting on the cells I can’t get a table to sort by date. It insists on alphabetical instead, so you’ve got 1/12/2024 ahead of 1/13/2023.

      • FinishingDutch@lemmy.world
        7·
        3 months ago

        When I worked in radio production, basically everything was formatted like YYYY-MM-DD. Which means stuff is really to find and properly in chronological order.

        I still use the MM-DD format for my own file formatting, even though DD-MM is the Dutch standard.

        YYYY-MM-DD is god’s perfect date notation as far as I’m concerned.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 months ago

        Yeah - I don’t get to determine what date format 3rd party reports are generated in before I import into excel.

        But excel has formatting options specifically designed to address this that it just ignores half the time.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      This is because you’ve accidentally input the values as text somewhere along the line. First make sure your format is set to date in the range in question.

      Make use of the DATEVALUE formula in blank column =DATEVALUE(your_range). This will output your range as a number. Note that your_range needs to be in your computers date format (I have mine set to YYYY.MM.DD, so that what I have to use, else it won’t work. You might be American, so your dates would need to be MM/DD/YYYY) for DATEVALUE to recognise the text as a date string.

      Then copy the output, paste as values only (alt, h, v, v), then copy that and paste it back into you range.

      Make sure the format is set to date and you’re laughing.

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
    4·
    3 months ago

    I have never run into this problem and wondered why. I realised it’s because I instinctively put an equal sign whenever doing a fraction.

    • xpinchx@lemmy.world
      9·
      3 months ago

      Or a UPC into scientific notation…

      I’ve been doing heavy Excel/data work for years and never have I ever wanted or needed anything in scientific notation.

  • Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    3·
    3 months ago

    The more lines you add in a program, the more stuff can break which is what I assume happens with excel when it thinks something is a date.

    Spreaking from experience, my code is in a metaphorical sense a building that is built to lean towards the wind, but when the wind stops, the entire thing collapses. I assume that’s how excel’s code base works too.