Google Sheets Custom Date Format as Default

Question

I am trying to set a Custom Default Date Format across the board. For Example, when I share my Google Sheets 'Workbook' to my colleagues, if they enter a date in any cell (in any Sheet ), the date should display as 'Sep-30' . For those familiar with MS Excel , there is a Region and Language setting with Short Date , Long Date and other customizations.

I know I could manually select all the cells in each sheet and set the desired date format. But is there a more efficient way ?

Answer 1

Unfortunately Google Sheets does not feature Custom Default Date Format

• It specifies :

By default, the time and date options that surface will be based on your spreadsheet locale.

• So you can adapt your spreadsheet locale according to the formatting you desire, here you can find a good overview of the formattings for different locale.
• However, I am not aware of a locale that would display the months by default in "mmm" format
• An alternative workaround would be to use Apps Script where the method setNumberFormat() would allow you to set all sheets of a desired spreadsheet programmaticaly to the desired format.
• Also, if you go on Help -> Report a problem you can ask Google to implement the custom default date format - they might do it in the future.