I have some reports and most of them involve tracking information by date.

When I copy and paste from the original spreadsheet(a report I have exported from Access to Excel...) I have to re-type every single date in the column or Conditional Formatting refuses to color it, like it isn't recognizing the data in the columns.

Visually the text appears the same before I type it and it will not color as it des after I type it and it will color.

I am so frustrated with this it is beyond words, and searching google has lead me nowhere time and time again. Lots of issues with copying and issues with colors but nothing even comes close to solving this problem.

I have tried changing the "format" of the column to text, to numbers... I have tried copying the original and pasting it with just "Values" selected...

Using Excel 2007
Windows 7 64bit