How to change date format in Calc?

users
#1

Hi,

My Calc date format is MM/DD/YY and I need it like this DD/MM/YY.
I have to work with a table with several dates which are in format DD/MM/YY, for example 02/07/15 that corresponds to 02 July 2015. My problem is that Calc understands this date as 07 February 2015!!!!
I tried with Right Click -> Format Cells and typing a format code DD/MM/YY, but it didn’t work because Calc just change my date from 02/07/15 to 07/02/15, and it stills understand it as 07 February 2015.
I also went to LibreOffice -> Preferences -> Language Settings -> Languages, in the option Date acceptance patterns I typed D/M/Y;D/M. This didn’t work neither.

I appreciate any help.

Thanks in advance.

#2

Leonardo Steller wrote:

> Hi,
>
> My Calc date format is MM/DD/YY and I need it like this DD/MM/YY.
> I have to work with a table with several dates which are in format
> DD/MM/YY, for example 02/07/15 that corresponds to 02 July 2015. My
> problem is that Calc understands this date as 07 February 2015!!!!
> I tried with Right Click -> Format Cells and typing a format code
> DD/MM/YY, but it didn’t work because Calc just change my date from
> 02/07/15 to 07/02/15, and it stills understand it as 07 February
> 2015.
> I also went to LibreOffice -> Preferences -> Language Settings ->
> Languages, in the option Date acceptance patterns I typed
> D/M/Y;D/M. This didn’t work neither.
>
> I appreciate any help.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
I think this only works if you have chosen a locale that has the dd/mm/yy format as default, e.g. English(UK). I don't know why. I would think that specifying both the Date acceptance pattern and the Format Cells should solve the problem, but apparently the locale setting has preference over the Date acceptance pattern for input. Maybe they could add an option telling which one has preference, or always give the Date acceptance pattern option preference.

#3

Change the number format language from English(USA) to English(UK). But
most likely your cell values are text. The text "01/02/15" is not a date
at all.

No formatting option will ever change a single cell value. This is an
intended feature.

Any conversion from text to dates is "dangerous". You may end up with a
complete mess of wrong numbers and wrong text.

Simply do not enter/paste/import wrong data into your sheet. Then you
can format everything to your liking.

When you type dates, follow the "date acceptance pattern" in the
language settings.

When you paste text into a spreadsheet or when you import text files,
_always_ check the "special numbers" option and choose the language
which reflects the cultural context of the ingoing text data, e.g.
English(USA) when the data contain M/D/Y dates.