Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!mcdphx!mcdchg!tellab5!wiseman
From: wiseman@Tellabs.COM (Jeff Wiseman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Excel, Dates, and SYLK
Keywords: Excel, Dates, SYLK
Message-ID: <3626@tellab5.tellabs.com>
Date: 30 Aug 90 04:17:48 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Tellabs, Inc. Lisle, IL
Lines: 44


OK you spreadsheet hackers. I need to get this straight once and for all!

I enter a whole bunch of dates in an Excel v2.2a column formated to mm/dd/yy
(more rows than you want to know!).

I want to export this whole sheet to SYLK format and import it to another
spreadsheet, in this case Wingz.

When I get it to Wingz, the dates are wrong, not because the mm/dd/yy entries
are wrong but because Excel exported the serial dates based on its default 1904
base (or whatever) and Wingz don't use that. I can't even convert the current
Excel sheet because it converts its internal value (the serial date) instead of
the value I ENTERED (eg. my 5/3/89, etc.).

NOW...

What is wrong:

1) Excel is not exporting correctly to SYLK (ie. writing out its internal cell
values -- the serial date -- instead of its presented values -- the formatted
date),

2) Wingz is not importing correctly from SYLK (ie. it's using the wrong base
date value),

3) The SYLK standard is screwy because it doesn't standardize on how dates
should be handled in the first place.

4) Something else that I haven't thought of...

Also, one other question:

In order to properly export/import these spreadsheets, am I going to have to
SLYK 'em first and go back to just the Date columns, export the date columns as
TEXT ONLY (in order to FORCE the mm/dd/yy format) and then import the values
overtop of the newly imported SYLK files in Wingz?

Could someone set me straight on this so that I can get rid of Microsoft
software from my system forever! :-)


-- 
Jeff Wiseman:	....uunet!tellab5!wiseman OR wiseman@TELLABS.COM