hi
they may look like dates, but they are not dates, Access holds date time fields as a number of units elapsed since a given point in time, caanot remember the exact details, but it is not particularly relevant to your question
solution:
make a new column (myDate) of type date/time
make an update query so:
assuming your current number column is called MyNumber
and your table is called mytable
UPDATE SET MyDate = CDate(Trim(str([MyNumber]))) WHERE IsDate(Trim(str([MyNumber]));
once run this should update the new column with your dates, provided the column MyNumber holds a valid date
now in table design view, rename of delete MyNumber and rename MyDate to the previous name of MyNumber
19900231
Regards
Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
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