Date & Time Formats

MagiCal allows you to specify the format used for the date or time using a special format string. In the pop-up list of time/date formats, several example formats are provided to give you an idea of what is possible.

The variety of formatting options is near infinite however, and it would be impossible to include all possibilities in the list. For this reason, the elements that make up the different format options are documented below. You can combine these in any order by simply typing the desired characters into the popup format field.

Note that if you use any characters (including space) that are not listed below they will appear literally in the time or date as you have written them. So you can use the colon (:) or slash (/) characters as time/date separators if you wish, as they have no specially defined meaning in the format string.

The backslash (\) character is used for escaping formatting characters so you can use them literally. For example "D" will be replaced by the numeric day of the month in the date text, but "\D" will appear as the letter "D". To produce a literal "\", use two backslashes in a row, like this: "\\".

If you are having trouble creating the format you want, feel free to contact us and we will be happy to help.

Month

The month of the year, e.g. January.

MONTH

The month of the year in all capitals, e.g. JANUARY.

month

The month of the year in all lower case e.g. january.

Mon

The month of the year, truncated to three letters, e.g. Jan for January.

MON

The month of the year, truncated to three letters and in all capitals, e.g. JAN for January.

mon

The month of the year, truncated to three letters and in all lower case e.g. jan for January.

Weekday

The day of the week, e.g. Monday.

WEEKDAY

The day of the week in all capitals, e.g. MONDAY.

weekday

The day of the week in all lower case e.g. monday.

Day

The day of the week, truncated to three letters, e.g. Mon for Monday.

DAY

The day of the week, truncated to three letters and in all capitals, e.g. MON for Monday.

day

The day of the week, truncated to three letters and in all lower case e.g. mon for Monday.

Da

The day of the week, truncated to two letters, e.g. Mo for Monday.

DA

The day of the week, truncated to two letters and in all capitals, e.g. MO for Monday.

da

The day of the week, truncated to two letters and in all lower case e.g. mo for Monday.

D

The numerical day of the month.

DD

The numerical day of the month, padded to two figures with a zero if necessary.

YY

The last two digits of the current year, e.g. 07.

YYYY

The current year in full, e.g. 2007.

M

The numerical month of the year, e.g. 1 for January.

MM

The numerical month of the year, padded to two figures with a zero if necessary, e.g. 01 for January.

Th

To be used after the numeric day of the month, eg. 1St, 2Nd, 3Rd, 4Th...

TH

As above but in all capitals, e.g. 1ST, 2ND, 3RD, 4TH...

th

As above but in all lower case, e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th...

W

The numerical week of the year, between 1 and 53.

WW

The week of the year, padded to two figures with a zero if necessary, e.g. 01, 02, etc.

d

The numerical day of the year, between 1 and 365.

ddd

The day of the year, padded to three figures with leading zeros if necessary, e.g. 001, 002, 056, etc.

\

Escape character - makes the subsequent letter, number or punctuation character (including "\" itself) appear as written, irrespective of any special meaning.

Weekday

The day of the week, e.g. Monday.

WEEKDAY

The day of the week in all capitals, e.g. MONDAY.

weekday

The day of the week in all lower case e.g. monday.

Day

The day of the week, truncated to three letters, e.g. Mon for Monday.

DAY

The day of the week, truncated to three letters and in all capitals, e.g. MON for Monday.

day

The day of the week, truncated to three letters and in all lower case e.g. mon for Monday.

Da

The day of the week, truncated to two letters, e.g. Mo for Monday.

DA

The day of the week, truncated to two letters and in all capitals, e.g. MO for Monday.

da

The day of the week, truncated to two letters and in all lower case e.g. mo for Monday.

H

The hour of the day (12 hour clock).

HH

The hour of the day (12 hour clock), padded to two figures with a zero if necessary.

M

The minutes of the hour.

MM

The minutes of the hour, padded to two figures with a zero if necessary.

S

The seconds of the minute.

SS

The seconds of the minute, padded to two figures with a zero if necessary.

2

The hour of the day (24 hour clock).

24

The hour of the day (24 hour clock), padded to two figures with a zero if necessary.

am / pm

For use with a 12 hours clock, indicates morning or afternoon.

AM / PM

As above, but in all capitals.

a.m. / p.m.

As above, but with period separators.

A.M. / P.M.

As above, but in all capitals and with period separators.

Fuzzy

The time in plain English, rounded to the nearest five minutes, e.g. Half Past Ten, Quarter To Eight.

FUZZY

As above, but in all capitals, e.g. HALF PAST TEN, QUARTER TO EIGHT.

fuzzy

As above, but in all lower case, e.g. half past ten, quarter to eight.

\

Escape character - makes the subsequent letter, number or punctuation character (including "\" itself) appear as written, irrespective of any special meaning.