Getting a handle on all of the paste functionality in Excel can save you hours of time entering data manually. If you have a date displayed within Excel or in another application, you can copy and paste it into another Excel spreadsheet and the program will automatically style it according to the spreadsheet's default formatting. You can also take advantage of the Paste Options dialog to format the date yourself.
1. Click the cell into which you want to paste the date.
2. Press "Ctrl-1" on your keyboard to load the Format Cells dialog. Click the "Number" tab and click "Date" on the Category list. Click your desired date format under the Type heading and then click "OK."
3. Copy the date from its source location or application. If you're copying a date from another cell or spreadsheet, click it and press "Ctrl-C" on your keyboard to copy it to the clipboard.
4. Click the cell into which you want to paste the date.
5. Press "Ctrl-V" on your keyboard to paste your copied date into the selected cell. Excel automatically formats the date to the default date format set for the current spreadsheet.
6. Click the "Paste Options" icon superimposed over the bottom-right corner of the active cell to alter optional paste options. You can, for example, link the date to an external location or maintain the date formatting used in the source document.
- To quickly insert the current date, click the cell into which you want to paste the date, hold down the "Ctrl" key, and then press the semi-colon key on your keyboard.
- Information in this article applies to Microsoft Excel 2013. It may vary slightly or significantly with other versions or products.
- Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images