Excel: Format date - what you need to consider

When building a table in Excel, you may want to enter a date. For this, the application offers you several ways to format it. You can choose a formatting that is set by default or create a custom format via the settings.

How to format a date in Excel

In Excel, there are numerous functions you can choose from to format your cell contents. For example, if you enter "2/2" in a cell, Excel will recognize this directly as a date and format it according to the default setting. However, you can adjust this and use a custom format, for example.

1. You can first format the date using a list of standard formats. To do this, select the cell that contains the date you want to format.
2. Then press the "CTRL" and "1" keys on your keyboard.
3. Select the "Format cells" option and then the "Numbers" tab.
4. Under "Category", now select "Date". On the right side you will see various date formats from which you can choose. Once you have selected a type, confirm with "Ok".
5. In the "Format Cells" dialog box from step 3, you can also set a custom date format.
6. First select a type as described above, but do not press "OK" yet. Now select "Custom" on the left side under "Category". Then you can create a custom date using so-called form codes.