ISO String Format Excel

ISO string format is a common way of representing date and time in a standard format. Excel supports ISO string format for inputting date and time values. In this article, we will discuss how to use ISO string format in Excel.

What is ISO string format?

ISO string format is a standard way of representing datetime values in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. The ISO string format is defined in the ISO 8601 standard. It uses a combination of numbers and symbols to represent a datetime value in a fixed order.

The basic format of an ISO string is:

YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.sssZ

where:

• YYYY is the year
• MM is the month (01-12)
• DD is the day of the month (01-31)
• T is a separator between date and time
• HH is the hour (00-23)
• mm is the minute (00-59)
• ss is the second (00-59)
• sss is the millisecond (000-999)
• Z represents a time zone offset (optional)

Using ISO string format in Excel

You can input datetime values in Excel using ISO string format by simply typing in the value in the correct format. Excel will automatically recognize the string as a datetime value and display it in the appropriate format.

For example, if you want to input the datetime value 2021-03-23T13:30:00, you can simply type it in a cell and press enter. Excel will display it in the format "3/23/2021 1:30 PM".

You can also use the TEXT function to convert a datetime value into an ISO string. The TEXT function takes two arguments: the value to be formatted, and the format string. To convert a datetime value into an ISO string, you can use the format string "yyyy-mm-ddThh:nn:ss.sss" (note that the seconds and milliseconds fields are optional).

Here's an example:

=TEXT(NOW(),"yyyy-mm-ddThh:nn")

This will return the current datetime value in ISO string format without the seconds and milliseconds fields.

Conclusion

ISO string format is a standard way of representing datetime values that is widely used in many applications. Excel supports ISO string format for inputting datetime values, and you can use it by simply typing in the value in the correct format. Additionally, you can use the TEXT function to convert datetime values into ISO strings.