by Barry » Thu Dec 27, 2012 6:49 pm
Numbers automatically completes anything it recognizes as a date (or time) entry, making it into a Date and Time value. If only the date is entered, Numbers sets the Time part to 00:00:00 (midnight, at the beginning of the entered date). If only part of the date (eg. the month and day), Numbers opts for the current year.
If the 'dates' you are entering will NOT be used in calculations and will NOT be sorted, the simplest means of entering only the month and day part of a date is to pre-format all of the cells in the column to contain those 'dates' as Text. Anything entered into those cells will be taken literally.
If you want to calculate with or sort by those dates, the simplest solution is probably to set the System clock to a date in 1948 whenever you are entering data to this spreadsheet. Dates entered as apr 17 should then be interpreted and completed as April 17, 1948 00:00:00, and by default, will display as April 17, 1948. Use a Custom Date and Time format to display only the month name and day of month number. Custom formats are constructed in the Cell Format Inspector.
Regards,
Barry