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You can specify whether you need 1000 separators or decimal places.Īpart from this, it also shows you the option where you can select if you want to show negative numbers in red (with or without a negative sign). While this may look like a longer way to convert dates to numbers, you can see that you get a lot more control when using the Format Cells dialog box.
Format cells dialog box launcher serial#
While it also works by changing the cell formatting from a date to a number, when compared with the above method where we used the Format drop-down and chose the General option, this method gives you a little more control.Īssuming I have the same data set where I have dates in column a comma below are the steps to convert these dates into serial numbers: Using the Format Cells Dialog Box (Gives More Control)Īnother great way to show dates as numbers would be by using the Format Cells dialog box. For example, if you have a date as ‘Dec 31 2022′ or ’12 31 2022’, these will not be converted into their serial number, because Excel does not recognize these as a valid date format.īelow I have some commonly used valid date formats in Excel. Note that this method will only work if the date in the cell is in a format that Excel recognizes as a date. A general format is where no specific formatting has been applied, so a number would be shown as a number (and if there are dates in the selected cells, these would be converted back to its serial numbers).