FORMULA & SQL / DATES

Show a date in a readable format.
Tested, not guessed.

The Excel and Google Sheets formula and the SQL query, each run on the rows below. Open this with your own data ↗

The example rows

Row	A: Region	B: Rep	C: Amount	D: Order Date	E: Status	F: Customer
2	North	Ana	1,200	2026-03-01	Paid	Jo Smith
3	South	Ben	450	2026-03-15	Open	Raj Patel
4	North	Cy	300	2026-04-02	Paid	Lee Wong
5	East	Ana	980.50	2026-04-20	Paid	Mia Ross
6	North	Ben	75	2026-05-05	Open	Jo Smith
7	West	Dee	1,640	2026-05-18	Paid	Sam Okoro

Excel

=TEXT(D2,"dd mmm yyyy")

Order Date (D2) formatted as "dd mmm yyyy".

Run on the example rows:

PostgreSQL

SELECT *, TO_CHAR(order_date, 'DD Mon YYYY') AS date_text
FROM sales

Other databases

MySQL

SELECT *, DATE_FORMAT(order_date, '%d %b %Y') AS date_text
FROM sales

SQL Server

SELECT *, FORMAT(order_date, 'dd MMM yyyy') AS date_text
FROM sales

SQLite

SELECT *, strftime('%d/%m/%Y', order_date) AS date_text
FROM sales

BigQuery

SELECT *, FORMAT_DATE('%d %b %Y', order_date) AS date_text
FROM sales

Snowflake

SELECT *, TO_CHAR(order_date, 'DD Mon YYYY') AS date_text
FROM sales

Paste your rows into the free tool and it writes this for your columns, then runs it on your data before you copy it. Open the tool ↗