The Export tool allows you to define more precisely how you would like to format date, time, and data output. The date and time formats may also be selected from a list of predefined types using the appropriate selection in the associated combo box. To select a custom date or time format select Use Custom Time/Date in the option in the combo box and type in a format string in the custom date or time format box below the combo box.
When creating the format string use the guidelines below. Use the numeric format guidelines to create a format string for data. Note that you can treat positive and negative data values differently.
The following table identifies characters you can use to create user-defined date/time formats:
| Character | Description |
| (:) | Time separator. In some locales, other characters may be used to represent the time separator. The time separator separates hours, minutes, and seconds when time values are formatted. The actual character used as the time separator in formatted output is determined by your system settings. |
| (/) | Date separator. In some locales, other characters may be used to represent the date separator. The date separator separates the day, month, and year when date values are formatted. The actual character used as the date separator in formatted output is determined by your system settings. |
| c | Display the date as ddddd and display the
time asttttt, in that order. Display only date information if
there is no fractional part to the date serial number; display only time
information if there is no integer portion. |
| d | Display the day as a number without a leading zero (1 – 31). |
| dd | Display the day as a number with a leading zero (01 – 31). |
| ddd | Display the day as an abbreviation (Sun – Sat). |
| dddd | Display the day as a full name (Sunday – Saturday). |
| ddddd | Display the date as a complete date (including day, month,
and year), formatted according to your system's short date format
setting. The default short date format is m/d/yy. |
| dddddd | Display a date serial number as a complete date (including
day, month, and year) formatted according to the long date setting
recognized by your system. The default long date format is mmmm dd,
yyyy. |
| w | Display the day of the week as a number (1 for Sunday through 7 for Saturday). |
| ww | Display the week of the year as a number (1 – 54). |
| m | Display the month as a number without a leading zero (1 – 12).
If m immediately follows h or hh,
the minute rather than the month is displayed. |
| mm | Display the month as a number with a leading zero (01 – 12).
If m immediately follows h or hh,
the minute rather than the month is displayed. |
| mmm | Display the month as an abbreviation (Jan – Dec). |
| mmmm | Display the month as a full month name (January – December). |
| q | Display the quarter of the year as a number (1 – 4). |
| y | Display the day of the year as a number (1 – 366). |
| yy | Display the year as a 2-digit number (00 – 99). |
| yyyy | Display the year as a 4-digit number (100 – 9999). |
| h | Display the hour as a number without leading zeros (0 – 23). |
| Hh | Display the hour as a number with leading zeros (00 – 23). |
| N | Display the minute as a number without leading zeros (0 – 59). |
| Nn | Display the minute as a number with leading zeros (00 – 59). |
| S | Display the second as a number without leading zeros (0 – 59). |
| Ss | Display the second as a number with leading zeros (00 – 59). |
| t t t t t | Display a time as a complete time (including hour, minute,
and second), formatted using the time separator defined by the time
format recognized by your system. A leading zero is displayed if the
leading zero option is selected and the time is before 10:00 A.M. or
P.M. The default time format is h:mm:ss. |
| AM/PM | Use the 12-hour clock and display an uppercase AM with any hour before noon; display an uppercase PM with any hour between noon and 11:59 P.M. |
| am/pm | Use the 12-hour clock and display a lowercase AM with any hour before noon; display a lowercase PM with any hour between noon and 11:59 P.M. |
| A/P | Use the 12-hour clock and display an uppercase A with any hour before noon; display an uppercase P with any hour between noon and 11:59 P.M. |
| a/p | Use the 12-hour clock and display a lowercase A with any hour before noon; display a lowercase P with any hour between noon and 11:59 P.M. |
| AMPM | Use the 12-hour clock and display the AM string literal as defined by your system with any hour before noon; display the PM string literal as defined by your system with any hour between noon and 11:59 P.M. AMPM can be either uppercase or lowercase, but the case of the string displayed matches the string as defined by your system settings. The default format is AM/PM. |
The following table identifies characters you can use to create user-defined number formats:
| Character | Description |
| None | Display the number with no formatting. |
| (0) | Digit placeholder. Display a digit or a zero. If
the expression has a digit in the position where the 0 appears in the
format string, display it; otherwise, display a zero in that position.
If the number has fewer digits than there are zeros (on either side of the decimal) in the format expression, display leading or trailing zeros. If the number has more digits to the right of the decimal separator than there are zeros to the right of the decimal separator in the format expression, round the number to as many decimal places as there are zeros. If the number has more digits to the left of the decimal separator than there are zeros to the left of the decimal separator in the format expression, display the extra digits without modification. |
| (#) | Digit placeholder. Display a digit or nothing. If
the expression has a digit in the position where the # appears in the
format string, display it; otherwise, display nothing in that position.
This symbol works like the 0 digit placeholder, except that leading and trailing zeros aren't displayed if the number has the same or fewer digits than there are # characters on either side of the decimal separator in the format expression. |
| (.) | Decimal placeholder. In some locales, a comma is used as the decimal separator. The decimal placeholder determines how many digits are displayed to the left and right of the decimal separator. If the format expression contains only number signs to the left of this symbol, numbers smaller than 1 begin with a decimal separator. To display a leading zero displayed with fractional numbers, use 0 as the first digit placeholder to the left of the decimal separator. The actual character used as a decimal placeholder in the formatted output depends on the Number Format recognized by your system. |
| (%) | Percentage placeholder. The expression is multiplied by 100. The percent character (%) is inserted in the position where it appears in the format string. |
| (,) | Thousand separator. In some locales, a period is used as a thousand separator. The thousand separator separates thousands from hundreds within a number that has four or more places to the left of the decimal separator. Standard use of the thousand separator is specified if the format contains a thousand separator surrounded by digit placeholders (0 or #). Two adjacent thousand separators or a thousand separator immediately to the left of the decimal separator (whether or not a decimal is specified) means "scale the number by dividing it by 1000, rounding as needed." For example, you can use the format string "##0,," to represent 100 million as 100. Numbers smaller than 1 million are displayed as 0. Two adjacent thousand separators in any position other than immediately to the left of the decimal separator are treated simply as specifying the use of a thousand separator. The actual character used as the thousand separator in the formatted output depends on the Number Format recognized by your system. |
| (:) | Time separator. In some locales, other characters may be used to represent the time separator. The time separator separates hours, minutes, and seconds when time values are formatted. The actual character used as the time separator in formatted output is determined by your system settings. |
| (/) | Date separator. In some locales, other characters may be used to represent the date separator. The date separator separates the day, month, and year when date values are formatted. The actual character used as the date separator in formatted output is determined by your system settings. |
| (E- E+ e- e+) | Scientific format. If the format expression contains at least one digit placeholder (0 or #) to the right of E-, E+, e-, or e+, the number is displayed in scientific format and E or e is inserted between the number and its exponent. The number of digit placeholders to the right determines the number of digits in the exponent. Use E- or e- to place a minus sign next to negative exponents. Use E+ or e+ to place a minus sign next to negative exponents and a plus sign next to positive exponents. |
| - + $ ( ) | Display a literal character. To display a character other than one of those listed, precede it with a backslash (\) or enclose it in double quotation marks (" "). |
| (\) | Display the next character in the format string. To
display a character that has special meaning as a literal character,
precede it with a backslash (\). The backslash itself isn't displayed.
Using a backslash is the same as enclosing the next character in double
quotation marks. To display a backslash, use two backslashes (\\).
Examples of characters that can't be displayed as literal characters are the date-formatting and time-formatting characters (a, c, d, h, m, n, p, q, s, t, w, y, / and :), the numeric-formatting characters (#, 0, %, E, e, comma, and period), and the string-formatting characters (@, &, <, >, and !). |
| ("ABC") | Display the string inside the double quotation marks (" "). To include a string in format from within code, you must use Chr(34) to enclose the text (34 is the character code for a quotation mark (")). |
A user-defined format expression for numbers can have from one to four sections separated by semicolons. If the format argument contains one of the named numeric formats, only one section is allowed.
| If you use | The result is |
| One section only | The format expression applies to all values. |
| Two sections | The first section applies to positive values and zeros, the second to negative values. |
| Three sections | The first section applies to positive values, the second to negative values, and the third to zeros. |
| Four sections | The first section applies to positive values, the second to negative values, the third to zeros, and the fourth to Null values. |
The following example has two sections: the first defines the format for positive values and zeros; the second section defines the format for negative values.
"$#,##0;($#,##0)"
If you include semicolons with nothing between them, the missing section is printed using the format of the positive value. For example, the following format displays positive and negative values using the format in the first section and displays "Zero" if the value is zero.
"$#,##0;;\Z\e\r\o"