Mac Works 3.0: Text Entered in Spreadsheet Appears as Dates (147565)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Works for the Macintosh 3.0
Microsoft Works for the Macintosh 3.0a

This article was previously published under Q147565

SYMPTOMS

Text entered into cells in a Works 3.0 spreadsheet is displayed as a date. This occurs if the text used is part of the name of a month.

For example, the following names appear as dates:

Text               Displayed As:
----               ------------
Marc               3/1/<year>
Jan                1/1/<year>
April              4/1/<year>

Where <year> is the current year in the Date and Time Control Panel.

RESOLUTION

To prevent the text from being changed to a date, add one double quotation mark (") to the beginning of each entry, as shown below.

Text               Displayed As:
----               ------------
"Marc              Marc
"Jan               Jan
"April             April

MORE INFORMATION

The double quotation mark causes the entry to be seen as text. This prevents Works from converting the name to a date.

This behavior was corrected in Works version 4.0 for the Macintosh.

Modification Type:	Major	Last Reviewed:	10/3/2003
Keywords:	KB147565