Comments on: Excel Dates Incompatible from PC to Mac?

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:25:22 +0000

Rob, you are a genius. Thanks so much, Roger

By: Jim from Ancaster

Jim from Ancaster — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:55:54 +0000

This is more than an inconvience and I don’t understand why Microsoft has not been forced to fix this or hasn’t been sued by someone who lost data. In our laboratory We exchange Excel files between multiple users and sometimes between users in other countries. A mixture of Macs and PCs are used. Only recently did this issue come to light when we copied a file between the two systems. Although it is fixable, it can be disasterous if someone who does not know what dates are correct opens the file and adds new information with dates. this file will then have two sets of dates, one correct and the other not. On moving back again the issue becomes almost unfixable. The engineers (ha) at Microsoft must live in a secluded world with blinders on where they assume veryone works on their own systems and does not share with others. This is more than ridiculous and I spend a good part of my time ensuring the integrity of our data. Microsoft knows about the issue, they created the program for both platforms, they could easily fix the issue by making one of them compatible with the other. The idiots need to be sued. At the very least, I would suggest Open Office unless you need to use the MS software.

By: xp tweaks

xp tweaks — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:57:16 +0000

Oh, I discovered this problem some time ago and had a lot of troubles. You are the real savior for me!)

By: Gurdeep

Gurdeep — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:32:33 +0000

I am unable to format the data entry of date in the dd/mm/yyyy format in the Excel for Mac 2008.
I am going bananas! Can somebody help please!!!

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.