i would suggest entering the dates as text. they will still be searchable.. and if the columns (f) is formated as date.. then your if statement should mess with it as "unknown" isn't a date. depending on what you plan to do with that date column in the future if it's just for look up or search .. text field will work.. if your going to use the date in a calculations you can use i believe it's cdate("string") to convert it for use.. not sure about changing the start date though.. LarrysPCRemedies@xxxxxxx wrote: I have a spreadsheet of names with associated dates (dd-mmm-yyyy). Some of the entries do not have dates associated and are blank. I have a column with the formula " =if(f3<>"",month(f3),"Unknown")" to obtain the month number, if there is a date, or to display "Unknown", if a date is not present. As you must know, Microsoft, in their magnificence, has decided the epoch-origin of calendar time to be January 1, 1900, and because some of the dates in my spreadsheet are pre-1900, instead of a month number, I get a =value! error. Is there a way to configure Excel to adjust Excel's beginning of time to, say, January 1, 1800? Failing that, can someone suggest a technique I can use to successfully overcome the =value! error? ,,,,,,, Larry Berlinski Ô¿Ô¬ **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolcmp00300000002850) ************************************************************* You are receiving this mail because you subscribed to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or MicrosoftOffice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To send mail to the group, simply address it to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To Unsubscribe from this group, visit the group's homepage and use the dropdown menu at the top. This will allow you to unsubscribe your email address or change your email settings to digest or vacation (no mail). //www.freelists.org/webpage/mso To be able to share files with the group, you must join our Yahoo sister group. This group will not allow for posting of emails, but will allow you to join and share problem files, templates, etc.: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MicrosoftOffice . This group is for FILE SHARING ONLY. If you are using Outlook and you see a lot of unnecessary code in your email messages, read these instructions that explain why and how to fix it: http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v28/greg28.htm ************************************************************* ************************************************************* You are receiving this mail because you subscribed to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or MicrosoftOffice@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To send mail to the group, simply address it to mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To Unsubscribe from this group, visit the group's homepage and use the dropdown menu at the top. This will allow you to unsubscribe your email address or change your email settings to digest or vacation (no mail). //www.freelists.org/webpage/mso To be able to share files with the group, you must join our Yahoo sister group. This group will not allow for posting of emails, but will allow you to join and share problem files, templates, etc.: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MicrosoftOffice . This group is for FILE SHARING ONLY. If you are using Outlook and you see a lot of unnecessary code in your email messages, read these instructions that explain why and how to fix it: http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v28/greg28.htm *************************************************************