Python in Excel Step-by-Step

Chapter 2Data Types

As a Microsoft Excel user, I’m betting you’ve encountered the situation shown in Figure 2.1 more than once.

Figure 2-1: Order Dates as Numbers.

The values depicted in Figure 2.1 do not align with the business definition of the data. Instead of displaying dates, Excel is displaying numbers (e.g., 45627). This is an example of where the Excel cell format is incorrect.

The situation is easily remedied by selecting the data, right-clicking, and selecting the Format Cells option. This opens the Format Cells dialog box, as shown in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2-2: Excel’s Format Cell Dialog Box.

Excel supports many different cell formats. Selecting the Date option and clicking the OK button reformats the data as dates, as shown in Figure 2.3.

Figure 2-3: The Correct Order Dates Format.

This is a demonstration of the importance of cell formats in Microsoft Excel. This importance goes far beyond making sure that data displays correctly.

Cell formats help Microsoft Excel understand the type of data stored in cells. Excel uses this understanding to control what you can do with the data. For example, calling the AVERAGE() function on a column of text values will produce an ...