Dates that are really text
The column looks like dates, but sorting puts 1 August before 27 July and a filter by period finds nothing. That means the cells do not hold dates — they hold text that looks like dates.
What it looks like
In Excel a date is a number of days since a starting point, plus a cell format that displays it as a date. The text "27/07/2026" is just a string of digits and slashes. A quick tell: numbers and real dates are right-aligned by default, text is left-aligned.
Text sorts character by character: "01/08/2026" is smaller than "27/07/2026" because "0" is smaller than "2". That is where the scrambled order comes from.
Where they come from
- exports from accounting systems, banks and payment services: the program writes the date the way it would show it on screen — as a string;
- CSV opened in Excel with the "wrong" regional settings: a date in a foreign format stays text;
- copying from a web page or an email.
Fixing it in Excel
For a format your regional settings understand, Data → Text to Columns → Finish often helps: Excel re-reads the values and recognises the dates. For a date with a time, or in a foreign format, people write a formula with DATE() and MID() and then paste the values over the originals. It works, but on an export of a hundred thousand rows it is slow and easy to get wrong.
How the app handles it
The app recognises dates in text cells by itself, by the same rules it uses for CSV: dd.mm.yyyy, dd/mm/yyyy and ISO (2026-07-27), with or without a time. A column becomes a date (or date-time) column if almost all of its values are written that way. So a single "Total" label among the dates does not get in the way — it stays text — and a column of codes where a couple of values happen to look like dates does not turn into a date column.
After that, sorting works by time, a filter by period works, and an export to Excel writes real dates into the cells. The file panel tells you which columns were recognised; you can switch the recognition off in the file parsing panel.
Workbooks from LibreOffice (.ods) and old .xls files are read the same way, since exports from business systems come in all three formats.
The day-first caveat
Be aware that the day comes first: 03/04/2026 is read as 3 April, not as 4 March. The American month/day order is not guessed — a numeric date is ambiguous, and a predictable rule is better than a silent guess. If your source uses month-first dates, check the result before relying on it.
FAQ
What about a date written as "27 July 2026"?
That format is not recognised: month names are written differently in every language and guessing is risky. The column stays text.
Is 03/04/2026 3 April or 4 March?
3 April — day first. The month/day order used in the United States is not guessed.
Does this work for CSV too?
Yes, CSV files get date recognition by the same rules.
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