Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Understanding Date and Time Formatting Codes.
In Excel, dates and times are stored internally as numbers. These are only converted to legible dates and times when you format the cell using a date or time format. The following table lists the formatting codes that are specific to dates and times. You use these codes when you are creating a custom display format (Format | Cells | Number tab | Custom).
| Symbol | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|
| m | Displays the month or minutes as a number without a leading 0 | |
| mm | Displays the month or minutes as a number with a leading 0 | |
| mmm | Displays the month as abbreviated text (Jan, Feb, Mar, and so on) | |
| mmmm | Displays the month as text (January, February, March, and so on) | |
| d | Displays the day of the month as a number without a leading 0 | |
| dd | Displays the day of the month as a number with a leading 0 | |
| ddd | Displays the day of the week as abbreviated text (Sun, Mon, Tue, and so on) | |
| dddd | Displays the day of the week as text (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on) | |
| yy | Displays the year with two digits | |
| yyyy | Displays the year with four digits | |
| h | Displays the hour without a leading 0 | |
| hh | Displays the hour with a leading 0 | |
| s | Displays the seconds without a leading 0 | |
| ss | Displays the seconds with a leading 0 | |
| [ ] | When surrounding hours, minutes, or seconds place holders, displays hours greater than 24 or minutes and seconds greater than 60 | |
| AM am PM pm A a P p | Uses a 12-hour clock, displaying AM or PM as specified | |
| \ | Forces display of the following character | |
| . (period) | The decimal point. | |
| "text" | Displays the text within the quotes. |
To understand better the effect of the date and time codes, take a look at the following information, which shows several common date and time formats and how they affect numbers.
| Category | Format | Value | Displayed As | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | m/d/yy | 34369 | 2/4/94 | |||
| d-mmm-yy | 34409 | 16-Mar-94 | ||||
| Time | h:mm AM/PM | 0.654166667 | 3:42 PM | |||
| [h]:mm:ss | 2.592673611 | 62:13:27 |
Notice that the numbers shown in the value column of these examples are the internal values stored by Excel for dates and times.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2179) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Understanding Date and Time Formatting Codes.
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2016-06-22 09:39:30
want to change excel date 01/10/2014 to 1/10/14 on the whole spreed sheet at on time not to go to each one to change have 20 sheets that could be reduced to 10. was able to do some time ago but no longer tried the painting function that doesn't work any more either.
2015-04-25 05:21:23
Barry
@Fernando
This is the subject of another Tip:
http://excel.tips.net/T003116_Recording_a_Data_Entry_Time.html
2015-04-24 19:56:00
Fernando marquez
When I enter info into a cell, it gives me the date (today) in a different cell:
=IF(ISBLANK(CELL),""today())
However I need the date to remain the same instead of changing daily
Thanks
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: 
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