As i guessed, cell A1 was formatted as text, thats why looks different than other cells in formula bar, and excel cannot compare it with other cells containing dates, without the formula posted, to convert text as date. Appears that you formatted cell A1 as mm.dd.yyyy, but the format is not yet applied to the cell... instead of 1 click to cell A1, double click it to open it, then press enter, it will look now the same format as other cells in formula bar .. (Please observe that the value in A1 is allined to the left, as text does, and B1, C1, D1 to the right, as numbers does...) you have to decide: format ALL cells as text, or format ALL cells as date...then they will look the same in formula bar