Formatting TIME and DATE Variables
Formatting TIME and DATE variables
To add the date to each page you can insert a text object (see Text for more detail on text objects) with the relevant variables substituted in (e.g. see the image below).
The default formatting for the date variable is such that if the day were Saturday 1st February 2020, %DATE% would be generated as Sat Feb 1 2020.
For the time variable, if it were 56 seconds past the 34th minute of the 12th hour of the day then %TIME% would be generated as 12:34:56.
Formatting can be changed for individual instances of the %DATE% and %TIME% variables by using bracketed arguments. For example, %DATE(ddd MMM d yyyy)% provides the default formatting described above. Other options are given in the tables below. Any input characters not included in these tables will be treated as regular text. This allows for further formatting customisation (e.g. %DATE(ddd-MMM/d.yyyy)% for Sat-Feb/1.2020).
For the %DATE% variable, formatting expressions and output are as follows:
| Expression | Output |
| d | The day as a number without a leading zero (1 to 31) |
| dd | The day as a number with a leading zero (01 to 31) |
| ddd | The abbreviated localised day name (e.g. 'Mon' to 'Sun') |
| dddd | The full localised day name (e.g. 'Monday' to 'Sunday') |
| M | The month as a number without a leading zero (1 to 12) |
| MM | The month as a number with a leading zero (01 to 12) |
| MMM | The abbreviated localised month name (e.g. 'Jan' to 'Dec') |
| MMMM | The full localised month name (e.g. 'January' to 'December') |
| yy | The year as a two digit number (00 to 99) |
| yyyy | The year as a four digit number |
Similarly, for the %TIME% variable:
| Expression | Output |
| h | The hour without a leading zero (0 to 23 or 1 to 12 if AM/PM) |
| hh | The hour with a leading zero (00 to 23 or 01 to 12 if AM/PM) |
| H | The hour without a leading zero (0 to 23, even with AM/PM) |
| HH | The hour with a leading zero (00 to 23, even with AM/PM) |
| m | The minute without a leading zero (0 to 59) |
| mm | The minute with a leading zero (00 to 59) |
| s | The second without a leading zero (0 to 59) |
| ss | The second with a leading zero (00 to 59) |
| z | The millisecond without a leading zero (0 to 999) |
| zzz | The millisecond with a leading zero (000 to 999) |
| AP or A | Interpret as an AM/PM time. 'AP' must be either 'AM' or 'PM' |
| ap or a | Interpret as an AM/PM time. 'ap' must be either 'am' or 'pm' |