Helpdesk Baruch College

How to Change Date Formats in Microsoft Excel

Excel makes use of the exact same day format as your computer system’s system settings. You may wish to transform the style of the dates, however, to make it more obtainable for individuals in other regions, or to make your information extra portable.

Change the Date Format

To get going, open the Excel spreadsheet that contains the dates you wish to reformat. Select the cells that hold each date by clicking and dragging your computer mouse over them.

When picked, click the down arrow to the right of the text box in the Number group of the Home tab.

A drop-down food selection will appear. There are 2 day layout choices to pick from in this menu: Short Date (1/17/2021) and also Long Date (Sunday, January 17, 2021). You can select either of those or, if that’s not the layout you’re trying to find, click “More Number Formats” at the end of the menu. This opens the Format Cells window. You can likewise push Ctrl +1 (Command +1 on Mac) to open this home window.

You’ll now remain in the Date classification of the Format Cells window. In the Type team, pick the style you want to make use of. If you favor to choose a date format based upon just how a specific language and area layouts days, you can select a choice from the Locale drop-down menu.

Click “OK” at the end of the window when you’ve picked the format you intend to use. The dates in the previously selected cells will certainly alter to the brand-new style.

Develop and also Use Your Own Custom Date Format

There are plenty of different layouts to select from, but you can likewise make your own custom-made day style if you want. To do so, pick the cells that contain the dates you intend to layout by clicking as well as dragging your cursor over them.

Next off, press Ctrl +1 (Command +1 on Mac) to open the Format Cells window. You’ll immediately be in the Date group. Click “Custom” at the bottom of the Category checklist.

Next, you’ll observe a code in the Type text box.

You can edit this code to create your own custom style. Each letter or letters in the code stands for a display screen type. Below’s what each letter or letters imply:

So if you were to get in m/d/yy in the Type box and afterwards click “OK,” the days in the chosen cells would be formatted as:

Play about with the different code mixes to find the excellent layout that works for your spreadsheet.

When altering the day layout, consider that’s mosting likely to be taking a look at the spread sheet. If your spread sheet contains a huge quantity of information, and also you want to take a look at the information over a period of time, you can sort the information by day, despite the format being utilized.

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