Excel 2007 spontaneously formats entire work book in date format -- seems to be

Question

Excel 2007 spontaneously formats entire work book in date format -- seems to be a bug -- is there a solution?

Hello, I am having a problem with Excel 2007 which I infer other people also have. In a large workbook, that has been in use for some time, suddenly one finds that virtually the entire workbook has formatted every cell as a date. Here are some web references indicating that other people are having the same problem.

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/33427643/default-cell-format-chang.aspx

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3620548.php

If this is not a bug, it is an unfortunate aspect of the user interface that so many people are running into it with no understanding of what they have done that caused it to happen. Is there some solution?????

Explanation / Answer

This bug has been posted in many forums. Apparently, the number format in the NORMAL style spontaneously changes from General to this date format ([$-409]m/d/yy h:mm AM/PM;@). This typically happens in shared workbooks, but I have seen it happen in one of my workbooks...which was not shared.

Since a change to the NORMAL style impacts every cell that has not been specifically formatted, the end result is seemingly devastating. The fix for any particular workbook, however, is relatively easy.

To resolve that issue:

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