Excel - How to convert US dates and times to UK dates and times

Anonymous
2021-05-14T17:03:30+00:00

Hello

I wonder if I could receive help with the following:

I have a long Excel spreadsheet where the dates and times are in US format and need to be changed to UK format. The problem is that the date and time need to be merged into one cell.

BEFORE HOW IT SHOULD LOOK
06/03/2021 06:PM 23/06/2021 18:00

Sometimes the data is laid out as below:

DATE TIME HOW IT SHOULD LOOK
06/03/21 06:PM 23/06/2021 18:00

Thanks for your help.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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HansV 462.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2021-05-14T21:28:56+00:00

That means that the values aren't real dates, but text values that look like dates.

  1. For a range with separate dates in a column:
  • Select the range.
  • On the Data tab of the ribbon, click Text to Columns
  • Click Next> twice.
  • In step 3 of the Text to Columns Wizard, select Date, and select MDY from the drop down.
  • Click OK.
  1. For a range with separate times in a column:
  • Select an empty cell and copy it.
  • Select the range with times.
  • Click the lower half of the Paste button and select Paste Special...
  • Select Add, then click OK.
  1. For a range with dates+times in a column:
  • Select the range.
  • Run the macro listed below.
  • You can discard the macro afterwards.

Sub Text2Date()
    Dim rng As Range
    Dim s As String
    Dim p As Long
    Dim d As String
    Dim t As String
    Dim a() As String
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    For Each rng In Selection
        s = rng.Text
        p = InStr(s, " ")
        d = Left(s, p - 1)
        a = Split(d, "/")
        t = Trim(Mid(s, p + 1))
        rng.Value = DateSerial(a(2), a(0), a(1)) + TimeValue(t)
    Next rng
    Selection.NumberFormat = "dd/mm/yyyy hh:nn"
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

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HansV 462.7K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2021-05-16T08:48:31+00:00

I don't use PowerQuery much, so if the following is off, I hope that others will take me to task - criticism is welcome!

Try this:

Click in the column with dates-as-text.

On the Insert tab of the Ribbon, click Table.

Make sure that 'My table has headers' is ticked, then click OK.

On the Data tab of the ribbon, in the Get & Transform group, click 'From Table/Range'.

PowerQuery will automatically recognize the values as date/time and display them in your system date/time format (mine is yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss)

Click Close & Load.

The result is a new table with 'real' date/time values:

You can now apply the desired format:

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45 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-05-16T17:52:04+00:00

    As I asked before:  Where is the data coming from?

    If the data is coming from a csv file, the flow/process will be different.

    If that is the case, please provide a sample of the csv file (copy/paste the text) after opening it in a Text Editor such as Notepad or Notepad++

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-05-16T18:00:49+00:00

    Hi,

    The data is already in Excel. 3 columns of data of 7000 rows.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-05-16T18:32:17+00:00

    That is odd.

    You have mentioned a few things that give me pause:

    1. Excel is not recognizing the dates as dates.
    2. You show an example where 9/19 gets converted but 10/2 does not
      1. You attribute that to the blank row, but I think there is a different reason.

    In Excel, real dates are stored as numbers.

    On the Excel sheet with the dates, if you add a column with:

        =ISNUMBER(date_Cell), do ALL the dates return FALSE?  Or do some return TRUE?

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