Preceden

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Supported Date Formats

Preceden supports a wide variety of date and time formats.

Quick Tips for Formatting Dates & Time

A few things to know before you start typing dates:

  • Month names work in upper or lower case, spelled out or abbreviated.
  • Commas are optional, both within a date and as separators in large years.
  • Years can be shortened to two digits: 29 to 99 are read as the 1900s, 00 to 28 as the 2000s.
  • For the years 1 to 99 AD, include the AD after the year so it is not read as a shortened modern year.
  • Spaces before BC/AD and before AM/PM are optional.
  • Preceden supports dates ranging from 240,000 BC to 240,000 AD.
  • When you specify an end date, Preceden assumes the event includes that date (learn more).

Date Formats

  • 2022
  • May 2022
  • 5/2022
  • May 8, 2022
  • May 8th, 2022
  • 5-8-2022
  • 2022-05-08
  • 05.08.2022
  • 5/8/2022 - Note that this is MM/DD/YYYY, the order used in the US; if your country writes DD/MM/YYYY, use the next format instead
  • 8 May 2022 - Use this one if your country writes dates as DD/MM/YYYY.
  • 8th of May 2022
  • 8 de Mayo 2022
  • 8 de Mayo de 2022
  • 60,000 BC - We support BC, BCE, BP, FVT, AD, CE, AC, DC, EVT; periods and spaces between the letters are optional.
  • Set the start date to Today and the event starts at the beginning of the current UTC date. Set the end date to Today and it ends at the end of that day.
  • A start or end date of Now, Present, or Ongoing reflects the current date and time, unlike Today, which reflects only the date. Preceden treats the three as the same date, so pick the word you want to read on your timeline: with the default Unformatted event date format, an event whose end date is Present displays it as Present rather than as today's date.
  • You can enter both dates in the start date field separated by a hyphen, and Preceden will split them for you: 2018 - 2022.
  • You can also enter a decade such as 1940s, which is split into 1940 to 1949 when the event is created.

We also recognize month names in a number of other languages. If yours is not covered yet, drop us a note at [email protected] and we would be happy to add it.

Time Formats

Once a date is specified, you can add a time to it:

  • May 8, 2022 1pm (pm and PM both work)
  • May 8, 2022 1:23pm
  • May 8, 2022 1:23:05pm
  • May 8, 2022 13:23:05 (when no AM or PM is specified, it's assumed to be 24 hour time)

Durations

For event end dates, you can enter a duration instead, which Preceden adds to the event's start date. A few examples:

  • 2 seconds
  • 8 minutes
  • 5 hours
  • 3 days
  • 7 weeks
  • 9 months
  • 1 year
  • 2 years 8 months 1 day 5 minutes
  • 10 weekdays - Preceden skips weekends when working out the end date