Need help with Microsoft Excel problem

LSF said:

MisterEd, you suggested

"The date text in that cell, "8-Aug-26", had a 2-digit year. It seems that Excel 2003 expects a 4-digit year. Note all of the other cells have 4-digit years.
There are two ways to fix that error. Either
1.Change the year to 4 digits, or
2.Right-click on Cell A12 and select "Convert XX to 20XX"
I tried that and it didn't work.
Note that all the dates cells prior to A12 only show 4 digit years in the fx box, not in the cells themselves. Therefore, when I enter the date in A12 in the same format as those cells above it, why does the fx box show a different format then it does for all the earlier cells?

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Like I said in my last post Excel 2003 showed an error in cell A12 as indicated by the little green arrow. After I changed the year to 4-digits the error went away. After that the formula in cell B11 worked OK.

I have more computers than I know what to do with. I have Microsoft Office 2003, 2010, 2019, and 2021 installed on different computers. On one computer I have Free Office 2021.

A lot of people recommend Libre Office. I have tried it and Free Office but prefer Free Office.

Note both Libre Office and Free Office by default read/write formats in their own native formats but also can read/write Microsoft formats like .docx and .xlsx.

Also, both Libre Office and Free Office have the option to switch between menu and ribbon GUIs any time. The menu GUI is like Office 2003 and before. The ribbon GUI is like Office 2007 and after.

Try3 said:

I suggest you copy & paste cell A10 onto cell A12 [so that it is forced into the same format as the others] and then re-type the desired A12 entry, 8/8/2026

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I tried that, didn't work.

After all the answers/suggestions that you fine folks here provided, I allowed my confused brain to have some time off, after which I did the following:

I opened the file (the one I uploaded earlier) on my trusty Win 7 machine, deleted the update I had added in Win 11 (highlighted in red on the previously uploaded file), and re-entered the information on the Win 7 machine, with the cells formated exactly as the other cells. It worked! The new information maintained the formatting when I re-opened the updated file in Win 11.

Now I can't explain why, but it's clear that Win 11 does not handle Excel in the same manner as Win 7 does when trying to update/edit the file. It will, however, maintain the formatting when reading the Win 7 file.

I'm attaching the (successfully) updated file FYI.

Please let me know if you can figure out how to perform this exact updat in the future with using Win 7 as an intermediary.

And, once again, I'd like to thank all of you for the time and interest you've taken with this issue.