How to fix Excel Cannot Recognize Date Format issue

Excel is a powerful tool for managing data, but it can be frustrating when you import data or type in dates and Excel doesn’t recognize them as dates. In this blog post, we’ll explore the reasons why Excel may not recognize date formats, and offer solutions to help you overcome this common issue.

Possible Reasons:

• Date format doesn’t match regional settings: Excel uses the date format specified in your computer’s regional settings. If the date format used in your data source doesn’t match your regional settings, Excel may not recognize the date format.
• Date entered as text: When a date is entered as text, Excel treats it as a string of text rather than a date value. As a result, Excel cannot perform date calculations or sort the dates correctly.
• Date format not recognized by Excel: If the date format used in your data source is not recognized by Excel, it may not be able to interpret the date correctly.
• Different date systems: Excel uses two different date systems, the 1900 date system and the 1904 date system. If the dates in your data source were created using a different date system, Excel may not recognize them.
• Incorrect formatting: If the cells containing the dates are not formatted as dates, Excel may not recognize them as dates and treat them as text instead.
• Leading or trailing spaces: If there are leading or trailing spaces in the cells containing the dates, Excel may not recognize them as dates.

Possible Solutions

Solution 1- Match Date format according to the region:

• Select the cells that contain the dates, right-click, and choose “Format Cells”.
• Select the “Date” category, and choose the appropriate date format from the list.
• If the date format you need is not in the list, you can create a custom date format by clicking on the “Custom” category and entering the format code.

Solution 2 – Date entered as text: 

• Use the DATEVALUE function to convert the text string into a date value that Excel can recognize. The syntax of the DATEVALUE function is:

=DATEVALUE(date_text)

Where date_text is the text string that represents the date.

• This will convert the text string into the date value 44518, which Excel can recognize as January 1, 2022. You can then format the cells as a date format to display the date in a more readable format.

Solution 3 – Use appropriate date systems: 

• Change the date system used in Excel to match the date system used in the data source.
• To do this, select File > Options > Advanced, and under When calculating this workbook, select the appropriate date system.

Solution 4 – Use correct formatting: 

•  Select the cells, right-click, and choose “Format Cells”. Then, select the “Date” category, and choose the appropriate date format from the list.

Solution 5 – Remove Leading or trailing spaces:

• Remove any leading or trailing spaces from the cells containing the dates. You can use the TRIM function to remove any leading or trailing spaces from a text string.
•  Syntax of TRIM function is

=Trim(Cell_Address)

In our case Cell Address is A2.