[ale] OpenOffice Spreadsheet and Dates

[Brian Pitts]

Robert Reese wrote:
 > Try selecting the entire column and changing the format to text and 
see if that fixes it for you.  Go to Format > Cells > Numbers tab and 
choose text.

This results in the cells being displayed as -41121 etc. for me too.

Stephen R. Blevins wrote:
> Have you tried to enter the date as a *text* item.  I would have entered 
> it as "05/30/1787  (closing quote mark not needed).

I'll do that if I have to, but I was hoping that rather than having to 
add a marker to each cell there would be a way to tell openoffice "hey, 
this column is full of text, don't automagically alter it". Based on the 
behavior I got when I changed the formatting, I'm worried that even if 
there is a way to do this it's too late.

-Brian