Microsoft Excel is pre-built or programmed to make it easy to enter the dates. For example, 12/4 4-December. It will be vexed when you enter a number that is not a date. There is no way to stop this, but we can work around it.
Preformat the cell
One of the ways is to preformat the cells you want to enter the number as the Text. The result will not come as a date but just a number. The steps would change the number into a text. When you enter a number with a / or a fraction, it will be just a number.
1. select all the "cells" you need to type in your dataset.
2. Press CTRL + 1. this will open the format cell. To get the format cell also, you can do this. After selecting all the cells, right-click. A menu will pop up, and you will see a formatted cell down the list. Click it.
3. Click the Text and then click OK to close it.
Check the screenshot below.
Option 2. (Using space)
add space in any cell before entering the numbers. When you hit enter, the space will remain with numbers.
1. open Microsoft excels.
2. Click one of the cells or a cell you want to add a number. Click space before you add a number.
Option 3 (use of apostrophe)
Before you enter the number, add the apostrophe '11-53 or '1/47. When you hit enter, the apostrophe will not be displayed.
Option 4. (Use of zero and space.)
Add 0 and space before you enter any fraction number. For example, ½, when you add a 0 or space, the number will not change to date. The zero will not be displayed when you hit enter. ½ will be a fraction number within the cell.
Things to keep in mind
1. I prefer you use an apostrophe instead of space and 0s when you plan to use VLOOKUP functions against your datasets. Functions like MATCH or VLOOKUP ignore the apostrophe. So, when calculating e result, you won't have issues.
2. When a number is aligned on the left side of a cell, it usually means it is not formatted as a number.
3. Entering a number with an "e," will automatically give you the result as a scientific number.
4. Depending on the number you have entered, you will see a green triangle on the upper side of the cell. It will indicate that the content in the cell is Text. The triangle will not appear again. You can ignore it by clicking the triangle; a box will appear to click the box and select ignore the error.
5. Any mistake you make will change datasets, altering your information or data.
There is no key or a function to get away with this. The only way to beat this is to play around with numbers and texts.