Programmatically Exporting Text File Truncates Dates

When you programmatically save the contents of your Microsoft Excel worksheet, some dates that are stored with a four-digit year are truncated to two-digit years.

This behavior occurs when the following conditions are true:

• You use the SaveAs method to save the contents of your Excel worksheet.
  
  -and-
  
  
• You specify one of the following parameters for the FileFormat argument of the SaveAs method:
  
  
  • xlCSV
  • xlCSVMac
  • xlCSVMSDOS
  • xlCSVWindows
  • xlDIF
  • xlTextMac
  • xlTextMSDOS
  • xlTextPrinter
  • xlTextWindows
  • xlText
  
  -and-
  
  
• The Short date style setting under Regional Settings in Control Panel is set to a format displaying four-digit years.

By design, Excel uses the default Short date style setting (m/d/yy) for the U.S. English version of Windows to determine the format for exporting your worksheet to one of the file formats listed above. This maintains consistent, predictable automation results, regardless of locale settings.

Cells that contain custom formatting are not affected by this behavior.