DATEVALUE function on Excel 2011 for Mac

Question

On Excel 2011 for Mac, OsX 10.9

=DATEVALUE("08/22/2008") returns a #VALUE error on my Mac. I tried the same command on Excel 2013 on Windows, as well as Office 365, both places work fine. Also a different variation =DATEVALUE("22-AUG-2008") works fine on my mac.

According to the help doc, both are supposed to work. (I have a screen shot, but evidently I am too new to post images)

Any one seen problems like this? Any work around?

Answer 1

I found a similar complaint at the link below which it was determined that you likely have a setting that makes Excel look at your erroneous function as "DD/MM/YYYY" while you are putting in "MM/DD/YYYY".

Problem with DATEVALUE() function.

Thankfully, if that is the case then I can understand the "#Value" error message when it's trying to look for month #22.

Answer 2

For the record: I already tried "08-08-2008" (where the Month vs. Date debate is moot.) Still doesn't work.

However, I did follow up Ron's response, turns out that the Canadian English format is "YYYY-MM-DD"... If I change it to US English, then the "MM/DD/YYYY" works again. Mystery solved.

Thanks Ron and Dave.