How to format custom column in excel to text format in C# excel interoperability

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Excel-2016

Hi, i have to bind mm/dd/yyyy format date in to text format in excel. i used below code.But its still in Custom format how can change this to Text in excel

ie: Any format coming from excel i need to bind back to mm/dd/yyyy format and i have to change the excel Date coloumn format to Text format

following code is not working .I am getting the mm/dd/yyyy format but format not changing to text still its in custom.how to change?

What I have tried:

string effdate = xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].Value.ToString();
                        var words1 = effdate.Split(' ');
                        var white1 = words1.FirstOrDefault();

                        DateTime dt = DateTime.Parse(white1);
                        xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm] = dt.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");
                        xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].NumberFormat  = "MM/DD/YYYY";

Posted 1-Sep-21 18:41pm

Manidas Payyoli

Updated 1-Sep-21 23:43pm

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Richard MacCutchan 2-Sep-21 3:49am

You should store dates and times in Excel as proper Excel DateTime types. The formatting should only be done when the cell is diaplayed.

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CHill60 · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-01T23:43:00

You have not changed the NumberFormat to text, you have changed it to the custom format "MM/DD/YYYY".

This will change the format to text

C#

xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm] = dt.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");
xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].NumberFormat  = "@";

However, take note of the comment from Richard MacCutchan - you should store this date as a Date not Text and use one of the standard NumberFormats for display only.

For example

C#

xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm] = dt;
xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].NumberFormat  = "m/d/yyyy";

Excel should automatically change that "m/d/yyyy" to your locale display settings

EDIT after OP Comment:

Try setting the format first then adding the value i.e.

C#

xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].NumberFormat  = "@";
xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].Value = dt.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");

If that doesn't work then put a single quote in front of the string e.g.

C#

xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].NumberFormat  = "@";
xlWorksheet.Cells[i, datecolm].Value = String.Format("'{0}", dt.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy"));

However, if you have to "convert" this to a pipe delimited file why not just write out a pipe delimited file in the first place and build it using StringBuilder[^], or String.Join[^] or Linq[^]?