# How to format date inside a table

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-format-date-inside-a-table/80825>\
**Category:** Maker\
**Tags:** perspective\
**Created:** [October 22, 2023, 9:52pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-format-date-inside-a-table/80825 "2023-10-22T21:52:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![pturmel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/pturmel/32/3295_2.png) [@pturmel](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pturmel)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/how-to-format-date-inside-a-table/80825/2 "2023-10-22T22:36:32Z")

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Configure the `.props.columns` list for your table to call out each column and provide datatype and **rendering** information:

[https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Perspective+-+Table#PerspectiveTable-Properties](https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Perspective+-+Table#PerspectiveTable-Properties)

[https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Table+Column+Configurations](https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Table+Column+Configurations)

Some background:

The datetime information in your database and the datatime datatypes in Ignition travel around the system as **objects** , and in Ignition, are timezoneless (UTC) **milliseconds** under the hood (`java.util.Date` objects, to be specific). They are only converted to strings for **display**.

Unfortunately, the javascript language used in browsers doesn't actually **have** this kind of object, so Ignition transmits the underlying UTC milliseconds to Perspective clients. Ignition's various Perspective UI components know how to **display** these as date/time strings when **told** to.

In the rare case when you need to convert to strings yourselves, there are hoops to jump through. See this topic for typical solutions:

> [@Ignition Perspective Page to show the client System date and time](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/ignition-perspective-page-to-show-the-client-system-date-and-time/73265):
>
> Is it possible to display the client computer/system date and time on perspective web page? dateFormat(now(60000), "yyyy-MMM-dd HH:mm:ss a") showing the Gateway Server system date and time. Under Browse Tags-\> System -\> Client Tags are not available for Perspective sessions.

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