Genstat stores dates as the number of days from either 1st January 1900 or 1st March 1600. If dates are copied from Excel to Genstat via the clipboard, they are transferred as text, resulting in a text column. However, if Genstat detects that the text may be a date format it will prompt you to convert the text to a date format.
The text marker :D can be appended to a column name in Excel to identify a column as a date column. When this marker is appended the column will be automatically interpreted by Genstat as a date format, whether it is pasted from the clipboard or imported from the Excel file. Similarly the marker :T can be used to identify a time column, and the column will be automatically interpreted as a time format.
