QDE is a fully-functional Excel Add-in that provides quick input of dates, in all international formats. It handles quick data entry interpretation and reflects the three interacting issues of Date System, Day, Month Year ordering, and number of digits used in the quick date entry. In most ... Operating System settings. With QDE you enter just as many digits as needed to clearly identify the date, QDE will do the rest.

QDE is a stand-alone utility, that, once installed, is available to all of your workbooks and worksheets. It does not change anything on the worksheet until directed to by you the user.

Below are two screenshots showing the date input, and what QDE converts it to. In this example, the 112 is converted to 11th Feb 2004 as the DatePriority setting is set to Day, and it is using UK date style.

   

QDE has been developed with the international date anomalies of Excel in mind, and should handle most, if not all, international date formats.

The add-in can be configured to provide custom entry formats, and also to set shortcut keys for the QDE functions (such as priming a spreadsheet for dat entry).

You should note that there are 2 versions of QDE, one for Excel 97 and 2000, and another for Excel 2002 and above. This is because the protection system was significantly enhanced in Excel 2002, with the ability to set worksheet protection at a finer level, allowing input in a protected sheet, which the the Excel 97 and 2000 version of QDE cannot handle. You can download either (or both) versions here.

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Download

There are separate versions of QDE for Excel 97/2000, and for Excel 2002 and later.

Click here to download QDE for Excel 97/2000 (325Kb),

or here to download the Excel 2002/3 version (302Kb).

You can also download QDE (and other useful utilities) from Ron de Bruin's site, or from Monika Weber's German language Office Help-Desk site.

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For more general information on Dates and Times in Excel, see Chip Pearson's Dates and Times page. Chip also has a page on short Date and Time Entry, which, whilst not as fully functional or internationally robust as QDE, does show some of the issues that need to be addressed.

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We would be delighted to hear any comments on QDE, good, bad or just suggestions to improve it. Please tell us .