I've had the exact same issue as your example. When I don't want Excel to auto format something for me I type in ' before the value. In this case I would have typed 'September 2008


I have to use Excel just about daily for sending and receiving data from clients. I have found that the Excel addon http://www.sobolsoft.com/excelremove/ and UltraEdit's column mode helps me get my work done in hours instead of days.