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Text To Columns: To Use Find & Replace

The document discusses 6 ways to fix dates formatted as text in Excel, including using Find and Replace to replace delimiters like decimals with slashes, converting the text to a serial number. Text to Columns can also be used by selecting the dates, choosing Delimited and selecting Date format. For more complex formats, formulas like VALUE and SUBSTITUTE can replace delimiters in dates before converting them to serial numbers.

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42 views2 pages

Text To Columns: To Use Find & Replace

The document discusses 6 ways to fix dates formatted as text in Excel, including using Find and Replace to replace delimiters like decimals with slashes, converting the text to a serial number. Text to Columns can also be used by selecting the dates, choosing Delimited and selecting Date format. For more complex formats, formulas like VALUE and SUBSTITUTE can replace delimiters in dates before converting them to serial numbers.

Uploaded by

aksldjgvb
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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7/25/22, 1:56 PM 6 Ways to Fix Dates Formatted as Text in Excel • My Online Training Hub

1.01.2014

This is where Find & Replace is a great option.

Using Find and Replace to replace the decimal with a forward slash converts the text
string to an Excel serial number in one fell swoop.

To use Find & Replace:


1. Select all the dates you want to fix
2. Press CTRL+H to open the Find & Replace dialog box<
3. Enter a decimal place in the ‘Find what’ field, and a forward slash in the ‘Replace
with’ field
4. Click ‘Replace All’:

Excel should detect that your text is now a number and format it automatically as a
date. If that doesn’t work, you can try the next tool; Text to Columns.

Tip: You can also use Find & Replace to fix date text strings with other delimiters like
spaces, or the hyphens we saw in the VALUE and DATEVALUE examples. Just enter a
space or hyphen in the ‘Find what’ field instead of the decimal place.

4. Text to Columns
Personally I love Text to Columns. It is one of the most versatile tools for fixing data
imported from other systems. I’m going to show you how to fix dates with it now, but I
recommend you take some time to play around with the other options it offers.

So, if your dates are formatted in text strings like this:

You can use Text to Columns to quickly reformat them all.

Simply select your dates in column A > Data tab of the ribbon > Text to Columns to
open the Wizard:

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7/25/22, 1:56 PM 6 Ways to Fix Dates Formatted as Text in Excel • My Online Training Hub

Step 1 of the Wizard: Choose ‘Delimited’

Step 2 of the Wizard: uncheck all Delimiters (just to be safe)

Step 3 of the Wizard: Choose 'Date' from the 'Column Data Format' options and choose
your date format from the drop down list (my dates are YMD), and click the Finish
button:

Tip: Note how the ‘Date’ drop down list above has many different combinations of D M
Y, you simply choose what order your dates are formatted in from the list.

This means you could have also used Text to Columns to fix the dates we looked at
with VALUE and DATEVALUE that had hyphens, or even decimal place delimiters, or
for example if your dates are text strings like these:

Jan 1 2014

Jan 2 2014 etc.

You’d simply choose MDY from the drop down list in step 3 of the wizard to fix the dates
above. Versatile eh?

Now, while Text to Columns is pretty powerful, it has its limits. For example if your dates
are formatted like this:

Wednesday, January, 1, 2014

You need to put in a bit more effort. Here is a tutorial where I use both Text to Columns
and the DATE function to fix the above date format.

VALUE and SUBSTITUTE Functions


If you prefer a formula solution to the Find & Replace or Text to Columns options above,
then you can use the VALUE function with SUBSTITUTE on stubborn dates that use
delimiters like decimals:

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