Most of us at some point have tried to find a particular number format, but we weren’t able to find one that satisfies our needs.

There will be another blog to follow this one that specifically deals with time, this one is just about dates.

How-To

In order to create a custom number format, you’ll need to access the Format Cells
window. Once there, choose the “Custom” option from the left hand side. Under the word “Type” you’ll be typing in your custom number format.

How to Type the Format

Customizing dates is easy! We just have to know what the simple code is. Keep in mind, you don’t NEED the day, month, and year. You can choose to display just the month, or the year.

Formatting Characters

Years 

Put in the following codes on the left to achieve the look on the right

YYYY                   2016

YY                          16

Months

Code on the left; result on the right

MMMM           January

MMM                Jan

MM                     01

M                          1

Days

Code on the left; result on the right

DDDD                Friday

DDD                    Fri

DD                        01

D                            1

Examples in Practice:

Want your employees’ birth years to be hidden? Try

MMM DD      to see           

Use the dashed, commas and slashes where ever you’d like them.

DDDD, MMM DD       will give you      

The TEXT function

The above method allows us to see something displayed without excel actually considering it a different value. However if your objective is to actually have the date value be retrievable by another function, then you’ll want to use the TEXT function. It has the same formatting rules conveniently.

  This will display as

The benefit in this case is that some other function is dependent on this cell to say “January”, it will be able to retrieve that text.