Importing dates is a better option but, sometimes, even imported dates come in as text. When this happens, use the DATEVALUE function to convert the text dates to Excel serial numbers.

Dates stored in text cells can cause all sorts of problems, especially if you want to filter or sort the spreadsheet. To get rid of the problem, all you have to do is convert dates stored as text ...

Excel may return a serial number instead of a date; because it is stored thus in the backend. Learn how to convert Serial Number to Date.