I am facing an issue with date formats in Excel, and I hope someone can help me resolve it.

My system's regional settings are configured to English (United Kingdom), and the short date format in the Region settings is correctly set to DD/MM/YYYY. In Excel, the default language is also set to English (United Kingdom) under File → Options → Language. Despite this, when I check the custom date formats in Excel, I see German-style formats like TT/MM/JJJJ instead of DD/MM/YYYY. This discrepancy is causing problems when working with dates, as Excel seems to follow German conventions even though the system and Excel settings are configured for English (UK).

For example:

If I try to manually use the formula =TEXT(A2, "DD/MM/YYYY"), it returns a #VALUE! error. However, if I use the formula =TEXT(A2, "TT/MM/JJJJ"), it works correctly, formatting the dates as expected. I have verified the following:

Regional settings in Windows are correct and set to English (United Kingdom). Excel’s display and authoring language are also set to English (UK). The short date format in the system is DD/MM/YYYY. I have restarted Excel and the system multiple times after verifying the above settings. Could this be related to a language pack issue or some hidden regional configuration in Excel? How can I ensure Excel aligns with the system’s regional settings and uses DD/MM/YYYY instead of TT/MM/JJJJ?

Any guidance on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

I am facing an issue with date formats in Excel, and I hope someone can help me resolve it.

My system's regional settings are configured to English (United Kingdom), and the short date format in the Region settings is correctly set to DD/MM/YYYY. In Excel, the default language is also set to English (United Kingdom) under File → Options → Language. Despite this, when I check the custom date formats in Excel, I see German-style formats like TT/MM/JJJJ instead of DD/MM/YYYY. This discrepancy is causing problems when working with dates, as Excel seems to follow German conventions even though the system and Excel settings are configured for English (UK).

For example:

If I try to manually use the formula =TEXT(A2, "DD/MM/YYYY"), it returns a #VALUE! error. However, if I use the formula =TEXT(A2, "TT/MM/JJJJ"), it works correctly, formatting the dates as expected. I have verified the following:

Regional settings in Windows are correct and set to English (United Kingdom). Excel’s display and authoring language are also set to English (UK). The short date format in the system is DD/MM/YYYY. I have restarted Excel and the system multiple times after verifying the above settings. Could this be related to a language pack issue or some hidden regional configuration in Excel? How can I ensure Excel aligns with the system’s regional settings and uses DD/MM/YYYY instead of TT/MM/JJJJ?

Any guidance on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

• excel

2 Answers 2

There are different language settings:

• The regional settings of your computer.
• Apparently there is the possibility to alter the language of the content, used inside Excel sheets.
• But there is also the language in which your Excel was installed. I believe this should be visible in the menu (do you have "File" and "Edit" or "Datei" and "Bearbeiten"?). I believe you're having a German Excel.

The locale settings in the operating system are decisive. If the language is set to English, then Excel also uses the English format.