Date formats you can display in Datawrapper

Once you've successfully uploaded your date column using a correct date format, you can choose how the date appears on your chart. On the Refine tab of the Visualize step for many charts, you have the ability to choose from a drop-down menu of date/tick formats:


Index

  1. Available date formats
  2. Custom date formats
  3. Combining custom tokens
  4. Use a different format for the first axis tick
  5. Localized Formats

Available date formats

Once you've successfully uploaded your data using a correct date format, you can choose how the date appears on your chart. On the Refine tab of the Visualize step for many charts, you have the ability to choose from a drop-down menu of date/tick formats.


Option Useful when? Example output
2015, 2016
When only a few years are shown
2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, ...
2015 Q1, 2016 Q2
When only a few quarters are shown
2015 Q1, 2015 Q2, 2015 Q3, 2015 Q4, 2016 Q1, 2016 Q2...
2015, Q2, Q3
When many quarters are shown
2015 Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, 2016 Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, ...
2015, Feb, Mar
When months of a few years are shown
2018 Oct, Nov, Dec, 2019 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, ...
2015-2016, 2016-2016 The "sport season format", for a few seasons
2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21
'15-'16, '16-'17
The "sport season format", for many seasons '18-'19, '19-'20, '20-'21,
'15, '16
When a lot of years are shown '11, '12, '13, '14, ...
April, May
When only a few months of just one year are shown
June, July, August, September, October, November, ...
Apr, May
When a lot of months of just one year are shown Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, ...
Apr '15, May '15
When months of a few years are shown
Oct '15, Nov '15, Dec '15, Jan '16, Feb '16, Mar '16, ...
April, 2, 3
When days are shown
February 27, 28, 29, March 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ...
April 2, 2015 When days over years are shown January 1, 2024; March 17, 2025; October 27, 2027


Custom date formats

The last option in the drop-down is "custom." Once selected, you can use tokens to create your own date format.

Below is a table of the accepted custom date formats and how they will appear on your chart:

Time Period Token Output
Month M
1 2 ... 11 12
MM 01 02 ... 11 12
MMM Jan Feb ... Nov Dec
MMMM January February ... November December
Quarter Q 1 2 3 4
Week of Year w 1 2 3 4
ww 01 02 03 04
wo 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
Day of Month D 1 2 ... 30 31
DD 01 02 ... 30 31

Do 1st 2nd ... 30th 31st
Day of Week d 0 1 ... 5 6
dd Su Mo ... Fr Sa
ddd Sun Mon ... Fri Sat
dddd Sunday Monday ... Friday Saturday
Year YY 70 71 ... 19 20
YYYY 1970 1971 ... 2019 2020
Sports Season  B '70-'71 '71-'72 ... '19-'20 '20-'21 

BB 1970-71 1971-72 ... 2019-20 2020-21
AM/PM A AM PM
a am pm
Hour H 0 1 ... 22 23
HH 00 01 ... 22 23
h 1 2 ... 11 12
hh 01 02 ... 11 12
k 1 2  ... 23 24
kk 01 02 ... 23 24
Minute m 0 1 ... 58 59
mm 00 01 ... 58 59
Second s 0 1  ... 58 59
ss 00 01 ... 58 59
Millisecond SSS 000 001 ... 998 999
Time Zone (offset from UTC) Z -07:00 -06:00 ... +06:00 +07:00
ZZ -0700 -0600 ... +0600 +0700
Unix Timestamp in second X 1360013296
Unix Timestamp in millisecond x 1360013296123

Combining custom tokens

By combining different tokens, you can create a custom date format. You can also use punctuation marks (commas, dots, slashes, etc) between tokens, which will appear on the chart. Here is an example of using a custom date format and how it will appear in your chart:

Since MM is the month number and YYYY the full year, our result is something like "01--2003" (the "--" appears because it is written in the tick format text box). Here is how it appears on a chart:

Use a different format for the first axis tick

You can make use of the syntax ~~ to specify a special format for the first axis ticks:

In this example, we use the format YYYY~~'YY to display the axis like so: 

You can combine tokens as you need them with the ~~ syntax. For example, you could use the custom format MMMM YYYY~~MMM to show the following axis ticks:

Localized Formats

Because preferred formatting differs based on locale, there are a few tokens that can be used to format a moment based on its locale. All of these tokens are affected by the Output Locale, which can be changed in the Check and Describe step or the Design tab of the Visualize step. The US and Germany are featured in the chart below.

Time Period Token Output (en-US) Output (de-DE)
Time LT 8:30 PM 20:30
Month numeral,
day of month, year
L 01/30/2019 01.30.2019
l lowercase L 1/30/2019 1.30.2019
Month name,
day of month, year
LL January 30, 2019 30. Januar 2019
ll Jan 30, 2019 30. Jan 2019
Month name,
day of month, year, time
LLL January 30, 2019 8:30 PM 30. Januar 2019 20:30
lll Jan 30, 2019 8:30 PM 30. Jan 2019 20:30
Month name,
day of month, day of week, year, time
LLLL Wednesday, January 30, 2019 8:30 PM Mittwoch, 30. Januar 2019 20:30
llll Wed, Jan 30, 2019 8:30 PM Mi, 30. Jan 2019 20:30

Here is an example of how to use a localized format:

Using the example from before, if our Output Locale is set to English (en-US), the date will appear July 1, 2003. If the Output Locale is set to Deutsch (de-DE), the date will appear 1. Juli 2003. 

For more information about working with dates and times in Datawrapper, see this article.