Excel – How to convert text to date in MM-YYYY format

date timemicrosoft excelworksheet-function

I have a column in Excel with the following entries in text format:

 7.2013
 7.2014
 8.2013
 8.2014
 9.2013
 9.2014
10.2013
10.2014
11.2013
11.2014
12.2013
12.2014
 1.2015

How can I convert this text to date and have them displayed in mm-yyyy format?

I tried changing it to Custom format Format Cells > Numbers > Custom but using it in the first cell (7.2013) gets changed to 01-1900.

Best Answer

Dates are stored as a number: days since January 0, 1900 (day 1 is 1/1/1900). Times are stored as a decimal fraction of a day. So 7.2013 is January 7, 1900 4:49:52 AM. Formatting that as MM-YYYY gives you 01-1900.

Select the full column and do a Search - Replace for . to -.

This converts your number into a text string that Excel recognizes as month-year input and stores it as an appropriate date. Now you can apply the Custom format mm-yyyy to the column.