Comments on: How to change date format in Excel and create custom formatting

The first part of our tutorial focuses of formatting dates in Excel and explains how to set the default date and time formats, how to change date format in Excel, how to create custom date formatting, and convert your dates to another locale. Continue reading →

Comments page 18. Total comments: 940

  1. I have to enter the date as 20180713 but then I need to calculate the number of days between this future date and the current date (=today()). How do I do that?

  2. Hello,
    I tried to convert automatically the date format 7/5/2018 6:57:48 PM in 5-July without succes. I mention that the cells are already completed.

    Best Regards,
    Florin

  3. Hi,

    I exported data in this format March 2, 2012. I want to change it into 02/03/2012. I have tried separating into columns, change the format using customized format etc but it still didn't work. Can you please help? Thanks so much.

    1. Rananditra:
      Do you mean you imported some data?
      When you right click on the cell that holds the imported data can you change it to Date format.
      I'm thinking you might have imported text that looks like a date.

  4. Hi Svetlana,

    how can i calculate the actual hh:mm:ss from past date & time to current in excel sheet.
    Please reply me its very urgent .

    Best Regards
    Ashubir Thakur

  5. How would I auto-populate the lease end date in excel? I.e. lease start date: 10/01/2018 with a 48 month lease would end on 09/30/2022. I am trying to find a formula to quickly generate the end date based on the start date and the amount of months. How would I do that?

    1. Alyssa:
      There are three formulae you can use to accomplish what you want.
      One is =EDATE(A1,48) where the start date is in A1 and you want the date 48 months hence.
      The second is =DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1)+48,DAY(A1)) where the start date is in A1 and you want the date 48 months hence. Each of these will return 10/1/2022.
      To get the 9/30/2022 date use =DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1)+2,0)
      All of these dates are correct, but you might want to use the last formula.

  6. Hi,

    I've got a cell formatted as date (dd mm yyyy), which is the system format. If I enter a date as 1/7/2018 or 01/07/2018, the cell displays 00 01 1900. Any other way of entering a date seems to give an error. I need to dates in date format in order to do some statistical analysis on the data as a time series. Any help would be appreciated.

    1. U need edit format- account-0 decimal

    2. Walt:
      Have you tried to change the format for the cell?
      Right click on the cell, select Format Cells and then choose a date format that displays the data the way you want. You may need to try a custom format the option for this is at the bottom of that same format cells window.

  7. Sir, I have write a date format in excel i.e. 05.05.2016 but i want to change it automatically in 05/05/2016 with the formatting option, I have tried many times but nothing change, so please do the needful at the earliest.

    1. Hi, I have entered in excel date as 3/01/2020 but it is displaying as 01/03/2020 i have tried date formats still it is not coming but, I need this date as United States format mm/dd/yyyy how can I change this help me.

    2. Shyam Lal:
      The easiest way to do this is to Find and Replace the "." with a "/". After you've done this Excel will recognize the entries as dates and then you can format them to be displayed in the format that suits you.
      Here's the procedure:
      Select the cells that hold the dates you want to change.
      Then click the Find and Select tool, then Replace to open the Find and Replace dialogue window
      Then enter a "." in the Find What field and a "/" in the Replace With field
      The first time you do this you should click the Find Next button then the Replace button. This way you can see what the Find and Replace procedure is doing to your data.
      When you're satisfied that Find and Replace is doing what you want you can click the Replace All button.
      When this procedure id finished, you can select the newly modified cells and click the Format Cells option and format the entries to be display in the manner you like.

      1. Thanxxx - I just remembered! :)

  8. I need to pull out the year from text that is November, 2016 but it won't change into any kind of date format and I don't want to manually enter years for 2000+ rows

    1. Hello, Marianne:
      Hello:
      I think the easiest way to is to select the cells and use the Text-to-Columns tool in the data tab.
      It goes like this:
      Practice with one cell.
      Select the cell that holds the "November, 2016".
      Choose the Text-to-Columns tool.
      Choose the Delimited button, click next.
      Choose the Other button and enter "," in the field, click next.
      Then you'll see how Excel will separate the data, click finish.
      You can select a destination cell if you need to. Keep in mind that the cell you select will be the first cell of two cells for the separated data.
      After this you will have the year separated in a destination cell as Date.
      Go through this same procedure for as many of the cells at one time as you want - one more or one hundred more.

  9. Hi
    I want restore previous save date file of excel is it possible if possible then please suggest me what to do..

  10. Hi Svetlana,

    Thank you for this tutorial! IMO, this one of the best tutorials I've seen on Excel date formats. It is well organized, clear, concise, and formatted (both in font & pictures/screen-captures) in such a way that I found it very intuitive. Thanks again for the high-quality work - for free!!!

    Kind Regards,

    Mike

  11. I wanted to add date and time
    suppose date 24/05/2018 & time 23:30:00 and another 25/05/2018 & time 10:30:00 i want the differece both date and time.

  12. hi,
    i got data with format date is "May 10 2018" with space.
    how to change format this date like 14-Mar.
    please help...

    1. Kiki:
      I took your data and was able to format it into the display you wanted using these steps.
      First, select the data
      Second, under Data choose Text-to-Columns
      Third, Choose the Delimited button, click Next
      Fourth, Choose the Space button, click next
      Fifth, Choose the General button, not the Date option
      Sixth, Choose the Destination cells, click finish
      Seventh, enter this into an open cell =DATE(I9,MONTH(5&G9),H9)
      Where I9 is the address that holds the Year, G9 is the cell that holds the month name and H9 is the cell that holds the Day. I used MONTH in your data because it used the word "May" instead of the month value "5".
      Once this is complete you should be able to format this cell as Date in the Format Cells dialogue window.

  13. Hi,
    I have two types of date date format on one is date month year format but another one is month date year format and I want to make both the date as date month year format. Please guide me. Below are dates:

    28-02-2014
    22-02-2014
    20-02-2014
    20-02-2014
    19-02-2014
    18-02-2014
    18-02-2014
    18-02-2014
    17-02-2014
    16-02-2014
    15-02-2014
    15-02-2014
    14-02-2014
    13-02-2014
    13-02-2014
    13-02-2014
    12/2/2014
    11/2/2014
    11/2/2014
    11/2/2014
    11/2/2014
    11/2/2014
    10/2/2014
    9/2/2014
    9/2/2014
    8/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    7/2/2014
    6/2/2014
    6/2/2014
    6/2/2014
    5/2/2014
    5/2/2014
    5/2/2014
    5/2/2014
    4/2/2014
    3/2/2014
    3/2/2014
    3/2/2014
    3/2/2014
    2/2/2014
    2/2/2014
    2/2/2014
    1/2/2014
    1/2/2014
    1/2/2014
    1/2/2014
    1/2/2014

    1. Hello:
      I think the easiest way to reformat the first dates that are in the "Month/Day/Year" format is to select the cells and use the Text-to-Columns tool in the data tab.
      It goes like this:
      Select the cells you want to reformat.
      Choose the Text-to-Columns tool.
      Choose the Delimited button, click next.
      Choose the Other button and enter / in the adjoining field, click next.
      Choose the General button and enter the cell where you want the numbers to be entered, click finish. Remember, there will be one number per cell so you'll need three cells, but you'll only need to enter the first cell address. For example, $B$2.
      After this you have the numbers separated so you can concatenate them into one cell by putting this formula in a destination cell like this:
      =Concatenate(B2,"/",C2,"/",D2)
      Format this destination cell as Date and you're finished with the hard part.
      After you've done this you can delete the extra columns containing the result of the Text-to-Column procedure.
      Copy all of the finished dates into the original cells, select all of the cells containing dates, format them as dates under the Format Cells window in your version of Excel and you're ready to go to work.

  14. When I enter the date as 05/30/2018 it stays in the cell but when I enter the date 053018 It changes to a completely different date. Is there a way I can keep the cell from changing dates?

    1. Susan:
      Yes, Excel and dates/times can be exasperating.
      The easiest way I know to accomplish what you're trying to do is let Excel know the value is a date by entering the "/" or "-" and formatting the cell as a date.
      If you just enter a number as in your second example and format the cell as a date, Excel shows the number as the number of days from Jan 1 1900 which is the date the PC Excel world began.
      If you need a leading zero you can try formatting the cell as text, but you won't be able to do calculations directly on text.

      1. Thanks Doug for your help!

  15. This will work:
    =LEFT(A83,2)&MID(A83,4,2)&RIGHT(A83,4)
    Where 17.04.2001 is in cell A83 and the formula is in another cell.

  16. How do i take out the dots using the formula. the below is date example

    17.04.2001

  17. Hi,
    I want to know the number of minutes between to times, but only looking at specific hours.
    Example:
    the minutes between: 23.03.2018 14.04 and 26.03.2018 07.22
    but only between monday to friday 8.00 - 18.30 , saturday 8.00-12.00

    Can you help me out with a formula i could use?
    Thank you

  18. How can I change this date 30-10-2001 to 30/oct/2001 Pls I need ur help

  19. Hi how to change апр.41 to 4.41

  20. Can you please help me if my date is in this format 27-03-2018 and I custom it to yyyymmdd the date stays 27-03-2018 in the formula bar?

    1. Hi Tracy-ann,

      What you see in a cell is only a visual representation of a date and you can change it to your liking by using different custom formats. The formula bar always displays dates in the default format.

  21. how to find the difference between'01-MAR-18'at the 1918/03/01 Can you please provide me a solution for this.correct pls 1-mar-2018

  22. I need to have the dates for the year auto populate, but I want to have 2 letters in front. For example; AB 15-3-18
    Please help!

  23. Hello!

    I have this date in my sheet:

    20122017
    14022018
    2022018

    I need yyyymmdd, but then I need to move to access.

    Help

    thanks

  24. Hi
    How can i change format to bilingual. in Canada we use date code on products so it can be read as English/French. See below for codes for months. example. February 21, 2018 can be written as 18 FE 21. Is it possible to do this in excel please?
    JA
    FE
    MR
    AL
    MA
    JN
    JL
    AU
    SE
    OC
    NO
    DE

  25. For some reason, Excel isn't using the regional formatting for dates that I have set in control panel. So instead of DD/MM/YY, I'm getting MM/DD/YY. The version of Excel is old, 97 I think so maybe it can only do American format dates.

  26. Hi,

    I have a column of durations formatted as [h]:mm:ss where I want to hide 00:00:00 values. Can I create a custom format to do this?

    Thanks,

  27. Hello,

    Could you please guide me in auto-filling the dates in the format as mm.dd.yyyy ?

    When I right click and drag the dates for fill series, the date unit is disabled and only the year is auto-filled. Is it because of the format (mm.dd.yyyy).? How could I autofill the days.

    Thank You.

  28. I'm saving one worksheet in a large workbook as CSV and finding the CSV file does not respect the change in default date format in that the step where I copy the worksheet to a temp sheet ends up using Excel's original default format therein and thus in the CSV. If I highlight the sheet by hand and save in this manner then "WISIWIG."

  29. I want to change the date written in '02-02-18 format
    but i want to write 02-Feb-18 format

    1. Hello, Tushar,

      It looks like your date is formatted as text right now. First you need to convert it to the date format. You can do this by using the standard Excel Text to Columns feature. Just select the range with your dates, go to Data -> Data Tools -> Text to Columns, choose the “Delimited” data type on step 1 of the Wizard and click Finish. Your data will get the default date format, 2/2/2018.

      After that press Ctrl + 1 and specify the necessary Date format, 02-Feb-18, for your data in the Format Cells dialog window. Click OK.

      Hope this information will be helpful for you.

  30. 'How to change date format in Excel': just followed these instructions to the letter, doesn't work, and checked, the dates are not in text format. The only way I can get the dates to change is by double clicking one box at a time then coming out of it, which is a rather slow way of changing a whole list of dates.

  31. Hello,

    How do i take out the dots using the formula. the below is date example

    17.04.2001
    01.07.2000
    01.04.2002
    15.01.2004
    01.03.2004

  32. I'm trying to change a date from 02/01/2018 to 2018/01/02, when tipe it in it changes to 2018-01-02, the format I want isn't even on the format list. Everything on my region setting shows correct. This must be some default setting.
    Thanks

  33. The problem i'm facing is all the dates are in American Format i.e MM/DD/YYYY but i want in Indian Format i.e DD/MM/YYYY i've thousands of entry i changed the region to India but how do i change the format to all the dates at Once, Do I've to do it Manually or there is a formula which will automatically change it from MM to DD and DD to MM?

  34. Hi,

    I have an Excel table where the file name is a (weird)date format.

    For example in plain text it says: 1805.01

    This is actually a date format(yymm.dd).

    Is there a way to convert this to a normal date format so I can filter the column by date (e.g. dd/mm/yyyy or 01/05/2018)?

    Many thanks!

    Stijn

    1. Hello,
      For me to understand the problem better, please send me a small sample workbook with your source data and the result you expect to get to support@ablebits.com. Please don't worry if you have confidential information there, we never disclose the data we get from our customers and delete it as soon as the problem is resolved.
      Please also don't forget to include the link to this comment into your email.
      I'll look into your task and try to help.

  35. Hi, I have a problem not with formatting, but with entering dates.
    If I enter 2/1, it appears as 1 Feb not as 2 Jan which I want. Cell is formatted correctly (I think) as d-mmm (or 14-Mar from the date list) but the data entry I suspect is wrong. Computer (Mac) is correctly set to English Australian and I think only Excel has this problem. It only started after a recent reload. Something simple I have overlooked?

  36. I've entered date in dd.mm.yyyy format. But excel is not detecting as date. How this can be solved?

  37. help me subtract the dates below..i tried but i got -0.11

    13/05/2017 10:14:57 AM
    13/05/2017 7:40:04 AM

    thanks

    1. Hello,

      You can use a formula like this:

      =TRUNC(IF(A1>A2,A1-A2,A2-A1))&" days "&TEXT(IF(A1>A2,A1-A2,A2-A1)-TRUNC(IF(A1>A2,A1-A2,A2-A1)),"h:mm:ss")

      where cell A1 is “13/05/2017 10:14:57 AM”, cell A2 is “13/05/2017 7:40:04 AM”

      Hope it will help you.

  38. When formatting my date it shows as 20/MM/2017 when it should be 20/11/2017.
    The month displays as MM instead of the actual month.
    With the cursor in the cell, the date in the function bar at the top shows correctly as 20/11/2017 but in the cell itself as 20/MM/2017.
    Changing the format to e.g. 20 November 2017 will show 20 MMMM 2017 in the cell.

  39. I have dates in Excel which are entered either as mm/yy or dd/mm/yy; they display as mmm-yy - which is correct. However, the date is used in a calculation and I want it to be read as the last day of the month (end of month) - is there a way to format the cells to ensure that the date is referred to as end of month?
    Thanks in advance.

  40. I would like to convert dates into month then by week.
    For example 01/05/2017 to 07/05/2017 would equal May week 1 2017 and 22/05/2017 to 31/05/2017 would equal May week 4 2017 then be able to filtered them to show in week/month order not A-Z
    Is this possible?
    Thank you

    1. Hello, Esther,

      For me to understand the problem better, please send me a small sample workbook with your source data and the result you expect to get to support@ablebits.com. Please don't worry if you have confidential information there, we never disclose the data we get from our customers and delete it as soon as the problem is resolved.
      Please also don't forget to include the link to this comment into your email.

      I'll look into your task and try to help.

  41. I am trying to convert a date from 20060911 (YYYYMMDD) to 09112006 (DDMMYYYY) I have tried to use the format but only received ########### is there a formula to do this?

    1. Hello, Toni,

      Suppose, your original value «20060911» is in cell A1. If you place this formula =TEXT(DATE(LEFT(A1,4),MID(A1,5,2),RIGHT(A1,2)),"ddmmyyyy") in cell B1, for example, you’ll get the result you need.

      Hope this will work for you.

  42. Hi,

    If i have a number such as 201709 in a cell, is it possible to format the same cell so excel knows it is a date (september 2017) and not a number?

    Naturally the date 2452/04/3 now shows.

    Thank you

  43. How to convert a text string 10-Oct-2017 to a number in excel?

  44. I set date format to mmm-yy.
    I entered 9/99. Excel displayed Sep-99 as I expected.
    I entered 6/06. Excel displayed Jun-17. It did the same for all years after 2000.
    I finally figured out that I need to enter 6/2006 (not 6/06) for years after 2000 to get the correct display: Jun-06. Is Excel stuck in the last century/millenium? Is there a way around this -- the need to enter the full 4-digit year?

    1. Hello,

      I regret to tell you but this is a standard Excel behavior. For it to recognize whether you want to enter 2006 rather than June or 1906, you need to input all four digits of the year.

  45. I want this Date (17/03/1988) as 17031988 please give me solution

  46. HOW CAN I CHANGE THE FORMAT OF DATE IN EXCEL :

    25-01-2017 TO 01-25-2017
    PLEASE HELP ME IMMEDIATELY

  47. when i enter 20/12/2008 as date in excel then it appers as 391204 so what can i do

  48. I wish to know the SIMPLEST method to change date format from 8/18/2017 to 18/8/2017. The former is confusing since in England it would suggest that the date is the 8th of the 18th month, which is clearly nonsense. I assume this ridiculous format must be imported from the USA and as such, is of no use to me, leading to as much confusion as the present USA President. Please advise.

  49. Hi there,

    Previously my 2007 excel showed up Agt-17, and now after upgrading to 2016 it became Agu-17. Since I refresh a lot from my staffs files and they are still using office 2007, I can't get the values from the month of August as mine will be showing Agu-17 and theirs are still in Agt-17.

    Can anyone advice me on how to change the format of the month show up?

    Thanks

  50. Hi
    How to convert date from 1/4/2017 to 1-april-2017 in excel

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