I’m working with a Google Sheets document and need help with changing date values into plain text format. My spreadsheet has a column with dates that come in different formats, and I want to make a new column that shows exactly the same information but as text instead of dates.
Here’s what I’m trying to accomplish:
original_date text_version
15-03-2023 "15-03-2023"
3/15/2023 "3/15/2023"
2023-03-20 "2023-03-20"
The quotes are just to show that these should be treated as text strings rather than date values. What’s the best way to handle this conversion while keeping the original formatting intact?
Here’s another trick that works great: use CONCATENATE with an empty string like =CONCATENATE(A1,"") or just =A1&"". This forces Google Sheets to convert dates to text while keeping how they look. I love this method when I’m dealing with mixed date formats from different sources. Unlike TEXT, you don’t need to mess with format codes. The empty string concatenation basically tells Sheets “hey, treat this as text, not a date object.” Works every time and handles those annoying imported dates that come in all sorts of formats - no extra formatting needed.
Use the TEXT function: =TEXT(A1,"@") where A1 is your date cell. The @ symbol forces Google Sheets to treat it as text while keeping the original format. I ran into this exact problem with imported data. The TEXT function keeps whatever format your date was already showing - MM/DD/YYYY, DD-MM-YYYY, whatever. Just changing the column to plain text can mess up how dates look, but TEXT preserves the exact string. Copy the formula down your column and you’ll get consistent text versions that match your original formatting perfectly.
yep, just set that colum to plain text. paste the dates in, and they should turn to text format automatically. super easy, trust me!