Comments on: Excel Dates Incompatible from PC to Mac?

By: Molly

Molly — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:09:18 +0000

I have discovered that the preference is not “sticky” — I have to do it with every spreadsheet. So I have the 1904 box unchecked, but when I copy the sheet into a new workbook the dates revert and I have to uncheck the box again. Seems there is no permanent fix.

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 08 May 2009 09:11:51 +0000

(Sorry by those typos and grammar errors on the previous posting!)

By: Tony

Tony — Fri, 08 May 2009 09:09:02 +0000

I was also surprised by these complicated engineering choices from Microsoft. This is not a feature it is a BUG, since interoperability and consistency across platforms should be a priority for MS Office!

The workaround mentioned here is only palliative since the actual problem appears any time we open excel files created on other platforms.

PS: By the way, OpenOffice.org works quite fine on the Mac OS X. Despite certain limits on the set of features I experience that OpenOffice delivers a safer, more stable, more flexible, and cheaper office solution, specially when used on Macs. There are a few weak points though, but very few things in this life are completely perfect.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:11:07 +0000

@vicky: Other than the differences in scripting the two, I think they are mostly the same. I haven’t found a great site for seeing all the differences side-by-side.

By: Vicky

Vicky — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:35:41 +0000

your brilliant
thank you so much!
Is there a good source to find other mac/pc differences?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:56:08 +0000

Thanks soooooo much!!!!!!! I too was completely frustrated with this bug……until I stumbled on your fix.

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:44:16 +0000

Oh my God — Thank you! This has driven me nuts. I’m on a Mac exchanging Excel income and expense statements with our Financial Manager who’s on a PC, and this happens every time. I keep changing the dates, but now the problem is cured!

By: Jason

Jason — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:05:43 +0000

A little odd but its a proven fact Microsoft enjoys complication.