Date and number formats

This document describes how to define new date and number format patterns, which you can include in your API request.

Date-time and number formats let you control how your data appears in a sheet. Google Sheets provides some common formats to choose from, but you can also define your own formats.

In the Sheets UI, you apply number and date formats to cells using the Format > Number menu. In the Google Sheets API, you set these formats using a spreadsheets.batchUpdate method call to send an UpdateCellsRequest or RepeatCellRequest. In the request, you configure the NumberFormat object by specifying a NumberFormatType (such as NUMBER, CURRENCY, PERCENT, DATE, or TIME) and an optional pattern string. If you omit pattern, Sheets uses the default format pattern for the specified type based on the spreadsheet's locale (for example, $1,000.12 for CURRENCY in en_US).

The sample Set a custom datetime or decimal format for a range shows how to set a format pattern using the Sheets API. Note that the actual rendering of the format depends on the spreadsheet's locale. This document assumes the locale is en_US. You can determine the locale of a spreadsheet by reading the SpreadsheetProperties object using the spreadsheets.get method on the spreadsheets resource.

For more samples, see Basic formatting and Conditional formatting.

About date and time values

Sheets, like most other spreadsheet applications, treats date and time values as decimal values. This lets you perform arithmetic on them in formulas, so you can increment days or weeks, add or subtract two dates and times, and perform other similar operations.

Sheets uses a form of epoch date that's commonly used in spreadsheets. The whole number portion of the value (left of the decimal) counts the days since December 30, 1899. The fractional portion (right of the decimal) counts the time as a fraction of one day. For example, January 1, 1900 at noon is 2.5, 2 because it's 2 days after December 30, 1899, and 0.5 because noon is half a day. February 1, 1900 at 3 PM is 33.625.

Sheets correctly treats the year 1900 as a common year, not a leap year. Date and time serial numbers don't store a time zone offset. Instead, they're based on the spreadsheet's timeZone, which you can read from the SpreadsheetProperties object using the spreadsheets.get method.

Date and time format patterns

A date-time format pattern is a string of token substrings that Sheets replaces with the corresponding date-time elements (such as the month or hour) when parsed.

Date and time format tokens

The following table defines the token substrings you can use in a date-time format pattern. A + character indicates that the previous character can appear one or more times and still match the pattern. Sheets treats characters not listed in this table as literals and outputs them without changes.

Token Description
h Hour of the day. Switches between 12 and 24-hour format depending on whether an AM or PM indicator is present in the string.
hh+ Same as previous, but with a leading 0 for 1-9.
m If the previous non-literal token was hours or the subsequent one is seconds, it represents minutes in the hour (without a leading 0). Otherwise, it represents the month of the year as a number (without a leading 0).
M The month of the year without a leading 0. Use this token to expressly state a month, instead of a minute, in your pattern.
mm Same as m, but with a leading 0 for both cases.
MM The month of the year with a leading 0. Use this token to expressly state a month, instead of a minute, in your pattern.
mmm Three letter month abbreviation (for example, "Feb").
mmmm Full month name. mmmmmm+ also matches this.
mmmmm First letter of the month (for example, "J" for June).
s Seconds in the minute without a leading 0.
ss Seconds in the minute with a leading 0.
[h+] Number of elapsed hours in a time duration. Number of letters indicates minimum number of digits (adds leading 0s).
[m+] Number of elapsed minutes in a time duration. Number of letters indicates minimum number of digits (adds leading 0s).
[s+] Number of elapsed seconds in a time duration. Number of letters indicates minimum number of digits (adds leading 0s).
d Day of the month, without a leading 0 for numbers less than 10.
dd Day of the month, with a leading 0 for numbers less than 10.
ddd Day of the week, three-letter abbreviation (for example, "Mon").
dddd+ Day of the week, full name.
y 2-digit year.
yy
yyy 4-digit year.
yyyy+
a/p Displays "a" for AM, and "p" for PM. Also changes hours to 12-hour format. If the token letter is capitalized, the output is, too.
am/pm As above, but displays "AM" or "PM" instead and is always capitalized.
0 Tenths of seconds. You can increase the precision to two digits with 00 or three digits (milliseconds) with 000.
\ Treats the next character as a literal value and not any special meaning it might have.
"text" Displays whatever text is inside the quotation marks as a literal.

Date and time format examples

Given the date and time Tuesday, April 5, 2016, 4:08:53.528 PM, the following table shows some example patterns and their corresponding date-time rendering. The second section of the table shows examples of elapsed time formats for an elapsed time of 3 hours, 13 minutes, 41.255 seconds:

Date-time Patterns Tuesday, April 5, 2016, 4:08:53.528 PM
h:mm:ss.00 a/p 4:08:53.53 p
hh:mm A/P".M." 04:08 P.M.
yyyy-mm-dd 2016-04-05
mmmm d \[dddd\] April 5 [Tuesday]
h PM, ddd mmm dd 4 PM, Tue Apr 05
dddd, m/d/yy at h:mm Tuesday, 4/5/16 at 16:08
Elapsed Time Patterns 3 hours, 13 minutes, 41.255 seconds
[hh] 03
[mmmm] 0193
[ss] 11621

Number format patterns

A number format pattern is a string of token substrings that Sheets replaces with the corresponding number representations when parsed. A number format pattern can consist of up to four sections, separated by semicolons, which define the separate formats used for positive numbers, negative numbers, zero, and text (in that order):

[POSITIVE FORMAT];[NEGATIVE FORMAT];[ZERO FORMAT];[TEXT FORMAT]

You don't need to include all four sections in a format. If you only include one section, Sheets uses that format for all values. Using two sections applies the first format to zero and positive numbers and the second format to negative numbers. Using three sections defines separate formats for positive, negative, and zero numbers. For example:

[NUMBER FORMAT]
[POSITIVE/ZERO FORMAT];[NEGATIVE FORMAT]
[POSITIVE FORMAT];[NEGATIVE FORMAT];[ZERO FORMAT]

However, if there are two or more sections and the final section is a text format, Sheets treats that section as the text format and the others behave as if there's one fewer section. Thus, by including a final text format it's possible to define formats such as:

[POSITIVE/ZERO FORMAT];[NEGATIVE FORMAT];[TEXT FORMAT]
[NUMBER FORMAT];[TEXT FORMAT]

The parsing of a format into sections occurs before other parsing, so it's possible to have a date or time format included as one of the sections (though this is of limited utility).

Number format tokens

The following table defines the token substrings you can use in a format section to define how to represent the values for that section.

Token Description
0 Represents a digit in the number. If the digit is an insignificant 0, it's rendered as 0. For example, the number format 00.0 renders the number 3 as "03.0".
# Represents a digit in the number. If the digit is an insignificant 0, it's not rendered. For example, the number format ##0 renders the number 12 as "12".
? Represents a digit in the number. If the digit is an insignificant 0, it's rendered as a space. This is often used to align the decimal point in a column when using fixed-width fonts. For example, the number format ???.??? renders the number 12.4 as: " 12.4 ".
. The first period represents the decimal point in the number. Subsequent periods are rendered as literals. If you include a decimal point in the format, it's always rendered, even for whole numbers. For example, #0.# renders the number 3 as "3.".
% Appears as a literal but also causes existing numbers to be multiplied by 100 before being rendered to make percentages more readable. For example, the number format #% renders the number 0.25 as "25%".
, If it appears between two-digit characters (0, #, or ?), it renders the entire number with grouping separators (grouping by the thousands). If it follows the digit characters, it scales the digits by one thousand per comma (for example, the format #0.0,, renders the number 12,200,000 as 12.2).
E- Renders the number in scientific format, with the formatting to the left of the E used for the non-exponent portion and the formatting to the right of the E used for the exponent portion. E+ shows a + sign for positive exponents. E- only shows a sign for negative exponents. If lowercase is used, the output e is in lowercase as well. For example, the number format ##0.00#E+## renders the number 0.0000001 as "100.00E-9".
E+
e-
e+
/ If it appears between two-digit characters (0, #, or ?), it treats those digit groups as a fractional format. For example, the number format 0 #/# renders the number 23.25 as 23 1/4. The denominator can also be a literal integer, in which case it enforces that integer as the denominator. The number format 0 #/8 displays the number 23.25 as 23 2/8. The fraction part is not rendered if the numerator becomes 0. The number 23.1 with the number format 0 #/3 renders as just 23 (because the 0.1 is rounded to 0/3). / is not compatible with scientific format or a format with a decimal point in it.
* Included for compatibility with Microsoft Excel number formats. Sheets ignores this token.
_ Skips the next character and renders a space. Use this token to align number formats where parentheses surround the negative value.
\ Treats the next character as a literal value and not any special meaning it might have. For example, the number format \#0 renders the number 10 as "#10".
"text" Displays whatever text is inside the quotation marks as a literal.
@ If the cell has text input, it inserts the raw text for the cell. Not compatible with any of the other special characters and doesn't display for numeric values (which display as general format).
$ - + ( ) : space Sheets treats these characters and common currency symbols (such as $, €, £, and ¥) as literals and displays them unchanged.

Meta instructions

In addition, each of the format sections can have optional meta instructions, enclosed in [] characters, that precede the format and provide additional instructions:

Instruction Description
[condition] Replaces the default positive, negative, or zero comparison of the section with another conditional expression. For example, [<100]"Low";[>1000]"High";000 renders the word "Low" for values below 100, "High" for values above 1000, and a three-digit number (with leading 0s) for anything in between. You can only apply conditions to the first two sub-formats, and if a number matches more than one, Sheets uses the first match. If there's a third format, Sheets uses it for "everything else"; otherwise, if a number doesn't match either format, Sheets renders all "#" characters across the cell width. If it exists, the fourth format is always used for text.
[Color] or [Color#] Causes any value this sub-format renders to appear with the given text color. Valid values for Color are Black, Blue, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Red, White, or Yellow. Valid values for the "#" in Color# are from 1 to 56. Number format colors override any user-entered colors on the cell, but don't override colors set by conditional formatting. This color palette shows a list of colors that correspond to each number. They're based on the ColorIndex property in Microsoft Excel.
[$currency] Displays the specified currency symbol or code as a literal (for example, [$€]#,##0.00 or [$CAD]#,##0.00). If you include an optional locale code after a hyphen (such as [$CAD-1009]), Sheets ignores the locale code.

Number format examples

The following table shows some example patterns and their corresponding formatted number rendering:

Number Pattern Formatted Value
12345.125 ####.# 12345.1
12.34 000.0000 012.3400
12 #.0# 12.0
5.125 # ???/??? 5 1/8
12000 #,### 12,000
1234.56
-1234.56		 $#,##0.00;($#,##0.00) $1,234.56
($1,234.56)
1230000 0.0,,"M" 1.2M
1234500000 0.00e+00 1.23e+09
123114.15115
MyText		 ###0.000;"TEXT: "_(@_) 123114.151
TEXT: MyText
1234
-1234
0
MyText		 [Blue]#,##0;[Red]#,##0;[Green]0.0;[Magenta]_(@_) 1,234
1,234
0.0
MyText
1005
32
527		 [>1000]"HIGH";[Color43][<=200]"LOW";0000 HIGH
LOW
0527