How to Set a Date and Time in Microsoft Excel

Co-authored by Katie Double

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This wikiHow teaches you different ways to insert dates into your Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Method 1

Method 1 of 4:

1
Type the desired date into a cell. Double-click the cell in which you want to type the date, and then enter the date using any recognizable date format. You can enter the date in a variety of different formats.^{[1]
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- Using January 3 as an example, some recognizable formats are "Jan 03," "January 3", "1/3," and "01-3."
2
Press the ↵ Enter key. As long as Excel recognizes the date format, it will re-format the cell as a date, which is usually mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy, depending on your locale.
- If the text automatically aligned to the right, then Excel recognized it as a date and re-formatted it.
- If the text stayed aligned to the left, Excel is treating the input as text rather than a date. This could be because it cannot recognize your input as a date, or because that cell's format is set to something besides a date.
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A new window will pop up.
It's the first tab.
A variety of date formats will appear on the right side of the window.
6
Select your desired date format under "Type." This reformats the selected cell to display in this format.
- You can also change your locale to access date formats used in your location.
7
Click OK. The selected cell(s) will now display dates in the selected format.

Method 2

Method 2 of 4:

This can be in an existing formula, or in a new cell.
If you wish to retrieve the current time as well, use NOW() instead of TODAY().^{[2]
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3
Hit ↵ Enter. Excel will return today's date as the cell value. This is a dynamic date, meaning it will change depending on when you are viewing the sheet.
- Use the shortcuts Ctrl + ; and Ctrl + Shift + ; instead to set a cell's value to today's date and time respectively as a static value. These values will not update, and act as a timestamp.

Method 3

Method 3 of 4:

Year, month, and day should be numerical inputs.
Excel will return the default date format, which is usually mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy depending on your locale.
4
Expand on the formula if required. You can set formulas for the year, month, and day values. Or, you can use the DATE function within other formulas.
- For instance, DATE(2010,MONTH(TODAY()),DAY(TODAY())) sets the cell's value as today's month and day in 2010. The formula DATE(2020,1,1)-10 sets the value to 10 days before 1/1/2020.

Method 4

Method 4 of 4:

1
Type the desired date into a cell. Double-click the cell in which you want to type the date, and then enter the date using any recognizable date format. You can enter the date in a variety of different formats.
- Using January 3 as an example, some recognizable formats are "Jan 03," "January 3", "1/3," and "01-3."
Excel will re-format the cell and align the text to the right if it has recognized it as a date.
Include the cell in which you just entered the date. To select, drag your mouse over all the cells, select an entire column or row, or hold Ctrl (PC) or ⌘ Cmd (Mac) while clicking each cell.
It's at the top of Excel in the "Editing" section and looks like a white box with a blue down arrow.
It is near the bottom.
6
Select a "Date unit." Excel will use this to fill the blank cells based on this setting.
- For instance, if you select "Weekday," all the blank cells will populate with the weekdays following the initial input date.
Make sure the are dates filled in correctly.

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Set a custom date format in Excel by right-clicking a cell, clicking Format Cells, and selecting "Custom" as the category in the Number tab. Review the available date options. Create your own by typing the format code using an existing code.

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