How to Create a Custom Date Format in Excel?

Last Updated : 03 Jan, 2023

Date formatting is very important when you prepare any set of data, then there are different types of formatting used for different categories, which are different from our normal formatting which is dd/mm/yyyy. When you enter any date in MS-Excel then excel considers it as the default format of date as your computer has, but you can change their format in numerous ways, and also you can make your own custom format of a date. Such as 14-Dec, December 14, 2023, 14/12/2023, and may more depending on individual choices, you can change it.

Here we are going to show the different ways to format a Date. Let's understand it in a better way by taking an example,

Step 1: Open MS Excel and save with any name. Here we are going to save it by "Date Format" name.

Step 2: Take any date, like here we are taking 15/04/2001, which is in the format of mm-dd-yyyy and also it is the normal format of a date.

Step 3: You can change the format by selecting that particular date cell, and press ctrl+1, then a new "format cells" window will open.

From this format window, you can choose date formatting according to your needs. If you want that date to be on 15 April 2001 format, then choose dd month yyyy from the format cell.

It shows outcome. After selecting the date format.

There are different examples of date formatting, here we are going to show you some of them.

Example 1: If you want to format the date in the dd-m-yy format then choose that option from the format cell., like shown in the below-mentioned image.

Here you can see the outcome i.e.,15-4-01.

Example 2: If you want to format the date in dd.m.yy format, then choose the option which is shown in mentioned below image.

Here you can see the outcome i.e.,15.4.01.

Example 3: If you want to format the date in Day, dd month, yyyy then choose the option from Format cell shown in the below-mentioned image.

Here we are taking day, dd month, yyyy date format

Here we can see it shows day and date as well i.e., Sunday, 15 April, 2001.

Custom formatting on dates

So, here we are done with all the pre-defined formatting which are present in excel, but now we will learn Custom formatting on dates, in which we can make our own format also.

For "Custom Formatting". Select the date. Press ctrl + 1. Choose "Custom" option. Write your own formatting in "Type" option. Then press OK.