Enhancement for capitalizing dates

[Blue Max]

Why not allow the user to display months and weekdays in all uppercase
(caps) by typing the format abbreviations in uppercase (caps)?

For example, MMM or MMMM or DDD or DDDD in any date format would display the
text months and weekdays in uppercase. This straight-forward convention is
used in other programs and, in fact, is even used for displaying a.m./p.m.
(lowercase) or A.M./P.M. (uppercase) in Excel by capitalizing the format
abbreviations for time.

This seems like a no brainer . . .

 

[Stewart Gordon]

Why not allow the user to display months and weekdays in all uppercase
(caps) by typing the format abbreviations in uppercase (caps)?

I thought Excel did. Maybe they've removed it for some reason that
escapes me. Or maybe I was imagining it.

For example, MMM or MMMM or DDD or DDDD in any date format would display
the text months and weekdays in uppercase. This straight-forward
convention is used in other programs and, in fact, is even used for
displaying a.m./p.m. (lowercase) or A.M./P.M. (uppercase) in Excel by
capitalizing the format abbreviations for time.

As I try it (Excel 2007), a/p or A/P works, but am/pm or AM/PM alike
displays uppercase. The only way I can find of getting the dots is
"a/p.\m.".

Incidentally, check out this scheme I devised for a library:
http://pr.stewartsplace.org.uk/d/sutil/datetime_format.html

Stewart.

 

[Blue Max]

Thank you Stewart, a very interesting library link. I especially took an
interest in your use of the square brackets as columnar alignment aids.
However, you are not describing Excel syntax are you? Entering your
examples in Excel 2007 does not appear to produce the indicated results. Is
this simply a suggested convention for a third-party program?

As you may have since observed, MMMM does not display the month in caps.
Like us, you are probably recalling this feature from other programs. It is
a great feature and we are not sure why Microsoft would not include such an
intuitive use of caps and format abbreviations.

As to the AM/PM issue, I apologize, as the standard formats do not include
the dots, as you noted. However, the capitalization of the format
abbreviation still stands as an example of how the other textual date codes
should work.

Thanks,

Richard

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[Stewart Gordon]

Thank you Stewart, a very interesting library link. I especially took
an interest in your use of the square brackets as columnar alignment
aids. However, you are not describing Excel syntax are you? Entering
your examples in Excel 2007 does not appear to produce the indicated
results. Is this simply a suggested convention for a third-party program?

It's a system I created for a programming library for the D language.
The columnar alignment is something that isn't quite implemented yet,
but I am working on it. I gave the link to show you something that is
more powerful/better designed than Excel's system and others (e.g. the
PHP date function).

Anybody who wishes to have a go at implementing my scheme as a VBA
function for Excel is welcome to do so. Unfortunately I don't know of
any way of making Excel use a custom function to format cell contents.

As you may have since observed, MMMM does not display the month in caps.
Like us, you are probably recalling this feature from other programs.

<snip>

I don't think so. At least, if I was, I can't think what. I also
recall something else from an earlier version of Excel, where "Mmm"
would return not a abbreviated month name, but something like (IIRC)
"202" for February, the "M" and "mm" being parsed as separate format
specifiers.

Stewart.

 

[Blue Max]

ADDENDUM: Interestingly, Word 2007 includes the ability to apply
capitalization attributes (all caps, small caps) from the font dialog. It
also includes other basic font attributes such as shadow, outline, etcetera.
These attributes can be quickly applied to any range of cells without
formulas or codes. We see no reason why the Excel 2007 font dialog does not
also include these same basic attributes for Excel fonts.

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