Date/Time
The format of the date/time stamps in the existing source data can be changed to anything you may need.
EasyCatalog also supports the re-formatting of date and time fields. By changing a field’s type to be Date/Time, EasyCatalog is able to sort data correctly in the panel. In some situations the output format should be the same as the input format: this is useful when the panel should be sorted by date or time.
Any date or time can be broken down into individual components called specifiers. Each specifier begins with a % symbol followed by a letter. For example, a four-digit year like 2025 is represented by %Y.
By combining multiple specifiers, you can define the format of any date or time. To do this effectively, you need to understand two key elements:
Input Format: the structure of the original source data
Output Format: the desired display format
Now, imagine your data source provides a date field with the following format: 12/24/2025 and you want to display it a more formal way, like Wednesday, the 24th of December, 2025. The value for import format should be %m/%d/%Y:
%m: 12%d: 24%Y: 2025
And for the output format, you should type %A, the %dth of %B, %Y.
%A: Wednesday, the: literal text%d: 24th of: literal text%B: December%Y: 2025
List of specifiers
%d-%m-%y %H:%M:%S
Year represented by 2 digits. day-month-year hours:minutes:seconds
17-06-19 09:11:47
%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
Year shown in full. year-month-day hours:minutes:seconds
2019-06-17 09:11:47
%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
Year represented by 2 digits. year-month-day hours:minutes:seconds
19-06-17 09:11:47
%d/%m/%Y
day/month/year
17/06/2019
%m/%d/%Y
month/day/year
06/17/2019
%d/%A/%Y
day/abbreviated weekday name/year
06/Mon/2019
%Ec
Current date&time on your computer
6/17/2019 9:11:47AM
%a
Abbreviated weekday name
Thu
%A
Full weekday name
Thursday
%b
Abbreviated month name
Aug
%B
Full month name
August
%c
Date and time representation
Thu Aug 23 14:55:02 2001
%C
Year divided by 100 and truncated to integer (00-99)
20
%d
Day of the month, zero-padded (01-31)
23
%D
Short MM/DD/YY date, equivalent to %m/%d/%y
08/23/01
%e
Day of the month, space-padded ( 1-31)
23
%F
Short YYYY-MM-DD date, equivalent to %Y-%m-%d
2001-08-23
%g
Week-based year, last two digits (00-99)
01
%G
Week-based year
2001
%h
Abbreviated month name (same as %b)
Aug
%H
Hour in 24h format (00-23)
14
%I
Hour in 12h format (01-12)
02
%j
Day of the year (001-366)
235
%m
Month as a decimal number (01-12)
08
%M
Minute (00-59)
55
%n
New-line character (‘\n’)
%p
AM or PM designation
PM
%r
12-hour clock time
02:55:02 pm
%R
24-hour HH:MM time, equivalent to %H:%M
14:55
%S
Second (00-61)
02
%t
Horizontal-tab character (‘\t’)
%T
ISO 8601 time format (HH:MM:SS), equivalent to %H:%M:%S
14:55:02
%u
ISO 8601 weekday as number with Monday as 1 (1-7)
4
%U
Week number with the first Sunday as the first day of week one (00-53)
33
%V
ISO 8601 week number (00-53)
34
%w
Weekday as a decimal number with Sunday as 0 (0-6)
4
%W
Week number with the first Monday as the first day of week one (00-53)
34
%x
Date representation
08/23/01
%X
Time representation
14:55:02
%y
Year, last two digits (00-99)
01
%Y
Year
2001
%z
ISO 8601 offset from UTC in timezone (1 minute=1, 1 hour=100) If timezone cannot be determined, no characters
+100
%Z
Timezone name or abbreviation If timezone cannot be determined, no characters
CDT
%%
A % sign
%
If the incorrect Input Format is specified, the field's content will be set to '???'
Prefix for other languages
Dates can be prefixed to support other spoken languages.
Month and weekday names are automatically localized when formatting dates. By default, they follow the language set in your InDesign user interface. However, you can override this by prefixing the date format with the desired language. For example:
[es_ES]%d %B %YFor the above setting, if your field content is 23/04/2025 and the input format is %d/%m/%Y the field content will be displayed with Spanish month names: 23 abril 2025.
Last updated
Was this helpful?