Date format settings apply to input but not output

[Marius Adam]

Hi!

I am new to Confluence (and this field of tasks in general), so this might out me as a newbie.
The task I am trying to accomplish is basically entering data into a table in a database layout.

I have a field to enter a date, and since I'm from Austria, we use dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm
I did change the date & time display configurations to "dd MM, yyyy HH:mm" and "dd MM, yyyy". Admittedly, I did only change this after I started working on the current table.

Now after I did this, when entering the date into the field, it respects these settings. But the output is still something like "Sept 17, 2024". But for entering it would be as I wish it to be "17.09.2024" !

How do I fix it being displayed correctly? Some of my co-workers don't speak English, so the English month-prefixes could be a bit confusing.

I don't want plugins or add-ons btw, I'd love for this to just work.

Many thanks in advance to everyone! And I apologize if this gets asked all the time, I couldn't find an answer.

[Mia Tamm _Simpleasyty_]

Hi @Marius Adam ,

You're not alone — this catches a lot of people by surprise in Confluence!

Changing the date format settings in your profile or space config does affect how you input dates, but unfortunately it doesn’t always control the output format, especially in things like database views or inline macros. These often fall back to the site language locale, which is typically English (hence “Sept 17, 2024”).

If you're using Confluence Cloud:

• Right now there's no native way to force display output to match your input format (dd.MM.yyyy) unless the site admin sets the whole instance to use a different locale (e.g. German).
  
  
• One workaround is to use a Text field instead of a Date field, and manually enter the date as 17.09.2024. That way you have full control over the format, though you lose date-picker support.

Not ideal, I know — I’d also love to see more flexibility here without needing plugins.

— Mia Tamm from Simpleasyty