# Excel Date Conversion Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-date-conversion-question/212451>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 10, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-date-conversion-question/212451 "2003-11-10T19:17:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-date-conversion-question/212451/1 "2003-11-10T19:17:49Z")

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Hopefully this is an easy question to answer, but I haven’t figured it out. I have an Excel file with dates in it, and I need to convert the dates to a text string that can run in a macro. In other words, my file has 06/01/03 (which actually is the value 37773) and I need to have a text string 060103. Is there a quick and easy way to do this? The obvious copy/paste special - values doesn’t work since it gives 37773, nor do any of the stripping functions (=LEFT(A1, 2)) since again it strips out numbers from the 37773 string.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

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**Author:** ![markle9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markle9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markle9)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-date-conversion-question/212451/2 "2003-11-10T19:25:52Z")

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If A1 has the date in it, the formula

=TEXT(A1, “mmddyy”)

will give you what you want  
Mark

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**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-date-conversion-question/212451/3 "2003-11-10T19:28:56Z")

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Use the “TEXT” function. And your Microsoft Excel Help feature.

The example given from the help doc:

TEXT(“4/15/91”, “mmmm dd, yyyy”) equals “April 15, 1991”

Good luck.

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**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-date-conversion-question/212451/4 "2003-11-10T19:35:00Z")

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Perfect! I knew it was something simple… just not something I was familiar with.

Thanks!