Text to Date | Glide Docs

The Text to Date feature transforms a text input into a date output. Date outputs contain a full date (day, month, year). They can also include a full time (seconds, minutes, hours) if desired.

For example, if you set up a text input that describes a date and add no instructions, you’ll receive a date result:

Input: The fifth day of June in the year two thousand and fifty nine

Result: June 5, 2059.

Text to Date can extract dates from text and make inferences about a date from text. But you can also ask questions that have an answer in date format. To do this, add instructions that ask the question you want answered.

For example, if you set up your action this way:

Input: US Labor Day

Instructions: What date is this holiday?

Result: September 4, 2023

Display Options for Text to Date Results

When choosing how to display dates, you have three options: Small, Medium, and Long. This allows you to have flexibility in how much detail you include in the resulting date.

Small will show only numerals (9/1/2023).

Medium will show the month written out (September 1, 2023).

Long will include the day of the week for that date (Friday, September 1, 2023).

For time, you can choose to display the time with or without seconds.

Adding the Text to Date Feature

Data Editor

Layout Editor

Workflow Editor

Open the table where you want to use the Text to Date feature.

Add a new basic text column for the Input. The input can be any column that contains text, so if you’ve used another action or computed column to create a text result, you can also use that text result as the Input source.

New columns added with the plus button will always appear on the right. If you’d like to add a column somewhere else in your data, you can select the dropdown menu on an existing column and choose Add column right. You can also click and drag columns to rearrange them.

Add a Text to Date column to store the result. Search for “Text to Date” or navigate to AI → Text to Date.

For Instructions, enter custom text to create more specificity for your prompt.

For Input, use the Input column created previously.

Note: If the action will be triggered in the Workflow Editor, then add a basic text Result column where the result will be stored.

Click on Done.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Text to Date available on all plans?

The Text to Date feature requires a paid plan. Browse our plans to find the right fit for you.

How does Text to Date consume updates?

The Text to Date feature will use one update every time it is triggered.