Excel 2003 - Date Formatting Error

Hi everyone!
One of our clients has an Excel Spreadsheet where she has a column that is to contain dates. She wants the format to be in mm/dd/yyyy. When she sets the format for these dates, she gets some strange outcomes.

For example, if she were to enter the date of December 25, 2007, actually typed like: "12252007," she receives the following in that field:
#################

If I keep the same cell date format, but change the entered value to:
"122507," then she receives the following:
5/30/2235.

No matter what date format I change the cell to, it continues to produce the date May 30, 2235.

Strangely enough, we are now able to replicate the exact issue here on our copies of Excel 2003. We've never had problems with date formats before. In fact I have an older spreadsheet I update regularly here in our office and it does not cause problems with dates. If I make a new spreadsheet, I am able to replicate the issue. I set the date format, I enter a date like 070607, then it produces 4/23/93

? Was there a recent bug or update that caused some problems? Anyone know?

Again, thanks in advance!
-Mike in Denver

 

Select the date format to be 12-Dec-2007, enter 12/25/2007, the date will appear as 12-25-2007. The ########### indicates a negative date or time.

 

We that worked. Unfortunately, the client has already put in her values, sans "/" or "-" so it sounds like she's out of luck and has to re-enter that data.

What does "negative date or time" mean? I saw that when I was looking at the Date Cell Formats, and it made mention of such a thing.

 

The numbers you were entering translated to something bad I guess. The ###### used to mean the column was too skinny to put up the data. Making the column wider made the data slid right in.

Since I retired I am slowly forgetting how to do Excel other than rudimentary spreadsheets to keep up with my movies.

 

Yeah, my first instinct was to expand the column width and height because I've seen ##### meaning there wasn't enough space. No dice.

No big deal though, we've pretty much told the client to redo the data properly

Thanks for your help Bmoore!