Sometimes when we import data from another source in to excel, the dates are not imported properly. This can be due to any number of reasons, including,
- The date format is different from one that is understood by excel
- The data has some extra spaces, other characters before and after the date values.
- The dates are formatted for another country (or date system) and hence your version of Excel wont recognize them.
- The separator between date, month and year is not a known separator (for eg. 12=DEC=2009 instead of 12-Dec-2009), etc.
In this post, we will learn some tricks and ideas you can use to quickly convert text to dates.
Technique 1: Use Text to Columns Utility
- First copy the source data and paste it in a text file (open Notepad and paste there).
- Now copy the values from text file and paste them in Excel.
- At this point, Excel will prompt you for using “Text to columns” utility (or Text Import Wizard as it is called in Excel 2007)
- Go to the Text Import Wizard (or Text to Columns dialog).
- Leave defaults or make changes in step 1 & 2.
- In step 3, select “Date” and specify the format of the date – like YMD, MDY, DMY, YDM, MYD or DYM. It doesn’t matter what is the format of source date, month or year is. Excel can smartly understand them.
- Click “Finish”.
That is all. Your text dates are now converted to excel understandable dates.
Technique 2: Using Formulas to Convert Text to Dates
- Paste the data in a column (say “A”)
- Now depending on the format of source data, write one of the below formulas to convert text to dates.
Using DATEVALUE formula
DATEVALUE formula tells excel to fetch the date from a given input. It is a smart formula capable of converting dates stored as text to excel understandable date format. To convert a text in cell A1 to date, you just write =DATEVALUE(A1)
However, DATEVALUE formula has some limitations. It cannot process all types of dates. For eg. I have shown a few sample dates along with corresponding DATEVALUE output.
Readjusting Date Text so that it works with DATEVALUE formula
Whenever possible, your next best option is to re-adjust the source data text so that it can be understood by DATEVALUE formula. Here is an example.
We can use the text formulas like LEFT, RIGHT and MID to extract portions of the date text and then regroup them using & operator to create meaningful date text format that would be understood by DATEVALUE formula.
Technique 3: Using DATE formula to Convert Text to Dates
If your data has separate columns for date, month and year, you can use DATE formula to convert the data to dates like this:
=DATE(year,month,day)
For eg. =DATE(2009,12,31) will give the date 31st December, 2009.
Bonus Technique: Converting Dates to Text
If you want to convert excel dates to text values (for your report or some other purpose), you can use the TEXT formula like this:
=TEXT(A1,"DD-MMM-YYYY") will convert date in Cell A1 to DD-MMM-YYYY format. You can pass any other date / time formats to TEXT formula as well. [more: tutorials on TEXT() formula]
How do you deal with troublesome dates?
Of course, if it is a real date, we can always bolt. But if it is a date in the data, we need some tools to deal with it. I used to rely on formula based methods to clean the dates. But recently I discovered the import-text date conversion method. This is very powerful and straightforward. Now, I use it whenever possible to clean up my date data.
What about you? How do you deal with buggy / faulty dates in Excel?
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11 Responses
Ciao Hui,
Collecting Excel tricks under the title “Notable Excel Websites (Non-MVP) Edition” is a brilliant idea…
Thank you in the name of all The FrankensTeam.
On our site there is a box with a picture and text highlighting:
This is a no-MVP site
we think ourselves “bad boys” a bit 🙂
For those who would like to know why our site is a no-MVP site, enough to click on the link:
http://goo.gl/lxDszY
Thank you again!
Thanks a lot
I really enjoyed this (newsletter). I must admit that I rarely read an Excel newsletter (and I subscribe to quite a few) all the way though, but this grabbed my attention and before I realized it, I was engrossed in it. I must also admit that most of this I don’t understand, yet. But, it excites me when I do learn something new in Excel. I can’t wait to see how much of this I can implement into my (constantly-evolving) ‘House Budget’ & ‘Family Medical’ worksheets that I have developed over the past few years! I sure hope to see more of these type of newsletters in the future! Thanks!
Thanks for doing this Hui! I appreciate being included.
I like Tom’s tip a lot. I posted about a tool I wrote to automate this at http://yoursumbuddy.com/tables-edit-query-dialog/
EXCELLENT !
Hui, This post is Superb! More over I have always been a fan of Roberto’s work and have learnt a lot from him.
Here are some of my recent contributions
1. Customising markers in a chart – http://www.goodly.co.in/customize-markers-in-a-chart/
2. Charting Hacks to work faster – http://www.goodly.co.in/5-charting-hacks-to-help-you-work-faster/
3. 7 Date formulas to make life easy – http://www.goodly.co.in/date-formulas-in-excel/
4. Customised scrollbar using VBA – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
5. Adding Direct Legends – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
Hope everyone enjoys!
I like the Excel Ninja Menus.
1. Select a cell or range then move till the 4-way cross appears. Right-Click and drag the selection to another place in the worksheet then, like a ninja, a menu full of skills and throwing stars pops up allowing me to do all kinds of awesomeness.
2. When you click the fill box on a Date and right click and drag it down, a lot of amazing Date options pop up.
I also brand my Excel to remind myself that I’m awesome. In my personal macro workbook I place the following code.
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Application.Caption = “SuperKrishna’s Awesomeness”
End Sub
My favorite tip goes along with #17. If you try to copy subtotaled data (and in earlier Excel versions filtered data),when you paste it all the data displays instead of just the summarized data.
To get around this, select your summarized data, click on Find and Select tab and then select Go to Special. Click Visible cells Only and click OK. Now paste and you will see that only the summarized data has been copied.
You can also go CTRL+G and then click the Special icon at the bottom of the dialog box.
What a great idea, Chandoo! I’d love to be included in your next edition:) Perhaps a VBA exclusive version?
@Ryan
I will review this concept about 6 months out from the original post and be sure to keep your site in mind
Hui…
That sounds great, Hui:) I just realized I gave credit to Chandoo for the idea and I should have attributed it to you.
Sorry about that!