Access 365 change Date Format of table contents

[Lugh]

I want our dates in mm/dd/yyyy format, ie 2 digits for month & day incl leading zero, & 4 year digits. I've changed the input mask from…
99/99/0000
to…
00/00/0000
…which should take care of this going forward.

Is there an easy/auto way to change the existing table contents?
The only issue is the leading zeros for mm & dd.

PS fyi re Input Mask:
"9" means user MAY enter a digit;
"0" means user MUST enter a digit

[Paul T]

Wouldn't you be better off saving the data as a date and then formatting it as required for display?
That input mask would allow dd/mm/yyyy input, e.g. 07/06/2018. It may be worth displaying it as dd MMM yyyy so users can be sure they got it right.

cheers, Paul

[Lugh]

Wouldn't you be better off saving the data as a date and then formatting it as required for display?

Thanks Paul. Yes, you are right, this is what we do everywhere else.

Our recent problem is with a large outside company we upload info to. They provide a spreadsheet template, and the latest version of it somehow prevented reformatting 7/6/2018 to 07/06/2018—problem being dates without leading zeros caused our upload to fail.

They fixed the problem yesterday, but have a history of messing things up with untested changes to various systems, so I try to foolproof our end as much as possible.

However…

I've probably got this wrong. Access probably can't store a format with a date, can it? Ie format is always a display choice.

[RetiredGeek]

Lugh,

You can set the format in the Table Definition.
AccessTableDateFmt.JPG

Result:
AccessTableFmt.JPG

HTH

[Lugh]

You can set the format in the Table Definition

Oh you beauty! I didn't realize you could type directly in there, thought I had to select one of the dropdown choices.

That did the trick, changed all the existing content. Thanks