6-18-2021

This is an extremely elementary question but that's the level at which I work: Please see the small attached spreadsheet "Abbreviated Excel spreadsheet.xlsx"



This is just the first few rows of a longer spreadsheet downloaded from my bank of an Excel file showing the transactions in a credit card account with that bank which occurred a short time ago. It was originally downloaded as as .csv file which I then saved as a .xlsx file and in that format manipulated it a little further Excel Office 365.

Please see the first column headed "Date" showing the date of these few transactions, all in May, 2021. Every single date appears in the format dd/mm/yyyy-- they appear as 05/18/2021, 05/22/2021 and 05/25/2021. There are dozens more such identically formatted dates in the larger complete spreadsheet which I downloaded from the bank.

NO MATTER WHAT I DO, I CANNOT GET THIS FORMAT TO CHANGE. I WOULD PREFER NOT TO SHOW THE INITIAL ZERO. I follow the usual instructions: after selecting this column-- I go to HOME--> Number-->click on the small box at the lower righthand corner of that window-->CUSTOM and see the list of different available formats. NO MATTER WHICH ONE I CHOOSE, NO CHANGE OCCURS IN THE APPEARANCE OF THE CELLS IN THE DATE COLUMN(???). ALTERNATIVELY, IF I CHOOSE HOME-->
NUMBER--> DATE-->AND THEN SELECT FROM THE SHORTER LIST OF DIFFERENT FORMATS, AGAIN NO CHANGE OCCURS WITH ANY OF THE OPTIONS CHOSEN.

At first I thought the problem might be that I had inadvertently managed to "lock" the cells and prevented formatting from being changed. As best I can tell, nothing is locked. What don't I understand about this process that absolutely no change in these cells occurs according to expectation from instructions given in multiple online help articles and youtube video clips? But in addition, what is the difference between these two different ways of trying to format dates? Assuming both happened to work, which one is preferable?

Whoever responds, please understand this is not merely a cosmetic issue. If I leave the date format alone and try to paste the Excel spreadsheet as it stands into a QuickBooks page designed to allow me to load the transactions from the Excel file into my QuickBooks account ledger(s), the paste fails and messages appear saying that the date format is incorrect.

Lastly, can anyone explain why the first date listed in that column is not aligned with the dates of the two transactions immediately below it? The two lower transactions stay together when I ask for right-justification, left-justification or centering of the column. But the first of the three transactions always moves independently of the other two, even after I line it up by hand with the two lower transactions: It will remain centered with them, but it will not be aligned in any other justification choice.

This oddity occurs only in the date column and only in the first row of data in any download of an Excel file from my bank. And not elesewhere. Why?

What gives?

Thanks.

geobar.

Attached Files

Abbreviated Excel spreadsheet.xlsx (11.4 KB, 9 views)