One of the most basic yet handy snippets in TextExpander is the current date. When it comes to customizing the date’s layout, many users don’t realize that TextExpander has supported Unicode Date Format Patterns since version 3.1. In addition to what you can do with TextExpander’s built-in date formatting, this adds support for:
– week of year, month
– calendar quarter
– day of year
– time zone
– more elaborate options for hour, minute, seconds, month, day, and year
– era (AD/BC)
– cyclic years (Chinese, Hindu calendars)
Here are a few examples:
Week of year with leading zero for single-digit weeks (e.g. 02):
%date:ww%
Current calendar quarter and year (e.g. Q12015)
%date:QQQyyyy%
Time with long time zone (e.g. 8:11:49 AM America/Los_Angeles)
%date:h:mm:ss a’ ‘VV%
Please see the Unicode Date Format Patterns documentation for complete details.
If you have a favorite elaborate date format, let us know: we’re @TextExpander on Twitter, and we look forward to your tweet.
