title: export to excel converting string to date
body: <p>I am pulling two fields and putting them together with a "-". When I export to excel it seems to think that the string is a date and converts it from 11-11 to 11-Nov. I can't seem to figure out how to fix this.</p>
  
  <p>I am exporting a gridview into excel. This asp.net using .net 3.5 and vb.net within VS 2008.</p>
  
  <pre><code>    Response.Clear()
  
      Response.Buffer = True
  
      'grab filename from filename box
      'if does not exist then do default naming
      Dim filename As String
      If filenameTextBox2.Text &lt;&gt; "" Then
          filename = "attachment;filename=" + filenameTextBox2.Text + ".xls"
      Else
          filename = "attachment;filename=GridViewExport.xls"
      End If
  
      Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", filename)
  
      Response.Charset = ""
  
      Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-excel"
  
  
  
      Dim sw As New IO.StringWriter()
  
      Dim hw As New HtmlTextWriter(sw)
  
  
  
      GridView1.AllowPaging = False
  
      GridView1.DataBind()
  
  
      'Change the Header Row back to white color
  
      GridView1.HeaderRow.Style.Add("background-color", "#FFFFFF")
  
  
  
      'Apply style to Individual Cells
  
      'GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(0).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
  
      'GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(1).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
  
      'GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(2).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
  
      'GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells(3).Style.Add("background-color", "green")
  
  
  
      For i As Integer = 0 To GridView1.Rows.Count - 1
  
          Dim row As GridViewRow = GridView1.Rows(i)
  
  
  
          'Change Color back to white
  
          row.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.White
  
  
  
          'Apply text style to each Row
  
          row.Attributes.Add("class", "textmode")
  
  
  
          'Apply style to Individual Cells of Alternating Row
  
          If i Mod 2 &lt;&gt; 0 Then
  
              'row.Cells(0).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
  
              'row.Cells(1).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
  
              'row.Cells(2).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
  
              'row.Cells(3).Style.Add("background-color", "#C2D69B")
  
          End If
  
      Next
  
      GridView1.RenderControl(hw)
  
  
  
      'style to format numbers to string
  
      Dim style As String = "&lt;style&gt;.textmode{mso-number-format:\@;}&lt;/style&gt;"
  
      Response.Write(style)
  
      Response.Output.Write(sw.ToString())
  
      Response.Flush()
  
      Response.End()
  </code></pre>