I need to insert a today date in a cell in Numbers as a text ( to prevent it changing everyday)
I use the menu item
I use Numbers version 6.2.1 (6529)
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Paolo Mescoli
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How Do I Prevent Numbers To Change the Format In a Cell When Entering Date?
Comments: 3 Responses to “How Do I Prevent Numbers To Change the Format In a Cell When Entering Date?”
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When you use the menu item Insert Date it will always change the cell to "automatic" format. That is because you are inserting text, not an actual date. Unfortunately, that menu command doesn't work very well. It inserts plain text in Pages, Numbers and Keynote. In Numbers, it would be nice if it used an actual date value, but I guess it doesn't to remain consistent.
If you want it to be a specific format, you'll then need to switch to it. Or, you can just type the date manually.
Another way to go is to have a cell set aside to use Insert, Date. You can have that as a cell in a 1x1 table if you like. Then have the real cell in your other table use =DATEVALUE() with the reference to the other cell in the (). Then format that cell how you like. Now if you change the date in the original cell, the one in the formula cell will interpret that date as a time value and format it as you like.
That is a good way to bypass the problem. But I will have, shortly, a long new table aside, as I need to enter a lot of data every day with the day's date.
Isn't there a way with Automator to enter a date as a text ?
Paolo: You could use automator to do it, or a number of apps (TextExpander, for example). But I do see that as being more efficient than typing 4-5 characters like "12/31."