Excel may return a serial number instead of a date; because it is stored thus in the backend. Learn how to convert Serial Number to Date.

Warnings Excel will only produce binary numbers with up to 10 bits. This means that it can only convert decimal numbers greater than -513 and less than 512.

When this happens, use the DATEVALUE function to convert the text dates to Excel serial numbers. To test this function, enter five dates—as text—in cells A5 through A9.

If you are converting more than one column of text to numbers, this is an excellent method to use. Select a blank cell and type 1 into it. Then press Press CTRL + C to copy the cell.

For example, to convert 37.3 C in cell B3 below, I’ve entered the formula =CONVERT (B3,”C”,”F”) in cell B9 to derive 99.1 F. The syntax of this function requires you to reference the number to be ...