Excel won't accept formatting of numbers 1

[jollyreaper]

Ok, so I have a cell that shows 38718. That should be a date. Ah, so it's obvious I should format the cell and say "number is date", right? You followed my line of thinking. Wrong! It refuses to take that formatting. I checked on one of the other sheets in the workbook and it has no problems. If I try formatting the number as currency, percentage, etc, there's no change. It simply will not display things correctly.

I know this has to be a simple but less than obvious problem. What's the fix? Thanks!

 

[Lilliabeth]

Try Edit > Clear > Formats and then format as date.

 

[jollyreaper]

Thanks!