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.

Understanding Date and Time Formatting Codes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated November 27, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


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.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Opening Non-Excel Files

Not all data is created in Excel. Indeed, you may have data in files created by many other types of programs. You might ...

Discover More

Combinations for Members in Meetings

Got a large group of people listed in a worksheet and you want to make sure that each person has met with every other ...

Discover More

Specifying Chart Sizes

If you need a number of charts in your workbook to all be the same size, it can be a bother to manually change each of ...

Discover More

Dive Deep into Macros! Make Excel do things you thought were impossible, discover techniques you won't find anywhere else, and create powerful automated reports. Bill Jelen and Tracy Syrstad help you instantly visualize information to make it actionable. You’ll find step-by-step instructions, real-world case studies, and 50 workbooks packed with examples and solutions. Check out Microsoft Excel 2019 VBA and Macros today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Copying Formatting

Excel provides a couple of different ways to copy formatting from one cell to another. Perhaps the easiest way is to use ...

Discover More

Defeating Automatic Date Parsing

Excel is continually trying to figure out what type of data is being stored in a cell. If it can interpret a value as a ...

Discover More

Notation for Thousands and Millions

When working with very large numbers in a worksheet, you may want the numbers to appear in a shortened notation, with an ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.