Changing Regional Settings for dates in Microsoft Office 365
You may have the wrong date format and time zone, which can cause issues when using Office 365 apps, due to the installation defaulting to American settings.
This article shows how to amend the regional settings and correct these issues.
Date format and time zone are common issues when using Office 365 apps:
- Regional settings default to American settings resulting in mm/dd/yyyy date format instead of dd/mm/yyyy which is the used in the UK, this date format issue can cause problems when updating shared spreadsheets and therefore it is imperative that these settings are amended.
- Time zone may also be set to an American time zone.
Reset Date Format
In Office 365:
- Click on the blue/white matrix menu at top left
- Click on OneDrive
- Click on Settings icon (top right)
- Select Site settings (not Office 365 settings)
- Click on Regional settings in the Site Administration block of the Site Settings list
- The Locale will be shown as English (United States)
- Use the dropdown list to reset it to English (United Kingdom)
- Click the OK button to save the settings
Note: It may be necessary to reenter the dates in order to pick up the new format.
Timezone Regional settings
In Office 365 Outlook:
- Click on Settings icon (top right)
- Select Options
- In Options window:
- Click on General
- Select Region and time zone from the list shown
- The Current time zone must be set for the UK
- Use the dropdown list to reset it to (UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
- Click on Save to store new settings