Time always set to 12:00 AM when inserting Date & Time

This is not going to help the original question but 12.00 am is not midnight, logically it is the end of the period that begins just after midnight.

ie The a.m half of the day which ends at midday.

I always try to change a factor if possible to side step possible bugs. Have you tried setting your clock to a 24 hr clock which does not have the ambiguities of the above and may be recorded correctly?

At last I understand what the OP tries to achieve.

Using the Insert Date Time menu item defaults to the insertion of a "pure" date
If we apply the time format to this entry we get 12:00 AM or 00:00:00 given the selected format.
If just after inserting we double click the cell, we get a menu allowing us to select a format matching our needs.

It is perfectly described in the User Guide (page 183 in English version)

+To add and format the date and time, place the insertion point where you want the value to appear, and then choose Insert > Date & Time.+
+To change the date and time format, Control-click the date and time value, choose Edit Date & Time, and then choose a date and time format from the pop-up menu. If you want the spreadsheet to always show the current date and time, select “Automatically update on open.”+

If the OP isn't satisfied with this behavior, he may

_Go to "Provide Pages Feedback" in the "Pages" menu_, describe what you wish.
Then, cross your fingers, and wait _at least_ for iWork'10 😉

and for the moment he may install the free WordService from Devon Technologies.

http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/index.html

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 18 janvier 2009 19:42:21)

what we are noting is that you shouldn't have to specify AFTER the fact that you want Date and time. If anything it should insert what the cell is formatted for, or at least the ENTIRE date and time, as it specifies in the menu option.

You would have to change this behavior every time you ever put in a date adn time. Thats not exactly what it sounds like when you hit "date and time" in the menu. I had to double click every single time I entered it. I just want it to insert the date AND time as is indicated. Other wise it should read, "Insert Date"

Just my 2 cents. I submitted a request for the feature enhancement. already anyways,
Jason

Hi Jason

If the entry was named Insert Date, nobody would guess that it may also insert Date & time.

My only problem here is that, as far as I know, there is no way to define the format used by default.

I know that this menu is rule by the resource file:
<startupVolume>:Applications:iWork '09:Pages.app:Contents:Resources:Defaults.plist



but I don't understand how it decide which item must be used as default.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 18 janvier 2009 21:08:46)

I confirm that "Insert Date & Time" inserts the date with the time at 12:00AM, regardless of the actual time. If used in a page header or footer it inserts the date only. In reality, that is exactly the same thing it is doing when used in a cell: it inserts the date only, no time. Either they should fix this or rename the menu item to "Insert Date".

The Insert DateTime inserts what you want if you take care of the official way to use it.

(1) select the Insert DateTime menu item.
(2) double click the inserted value to display the contextual menu allowing us to define whath we want to get.

It's described by:

To add and format the date and time, place the insertion point where you want the
value to appear, and then choose Insert > Date & Time.
To change the date and time format, Control-click the date and time value, choose Edit
Date & Time, and then choose a date and time format from the pop-up menu. If you
want the spreadsheet to always show the current date and time, select “Automatically
update on open.”

page 183 of the English User Guide.

There are services able to do that for Pages but none may be used with Numbers.
This is why you may grab a script doing the insertion in a single command on my iDisk:
<http://idisk.me.com/koenigyvan-Public?view=web>

Download:
For_iWork:iWork '09:for_Numbers09:insertDateTime.zip

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 9 avril 2009 12:08:37)

Throwing that old User's Manual in our faces again, eh Yvan? I stand humbled and corrected. Worse than that, I even read that section of the manual (and your post from January with the same text) before I posted but I glossed over the part about editing the format thinking it was nothing different than editing a cell format. Thanks for clearing this up.

I get the same if I select insert Date & Time. However it is not clear what that function is for. If you want the current time then you can insert =NOW() as a formula This will insert the current time and date. If you need to update it I think you just have to select the formula and click the tick and it updates to the current time again. There may be other ways of updating/refreshing, but I am new to the program so haven't found them yet.
Reg

Insert DateTime default inserting the TODAY() value which is described in the User Guide.

Maybe the wording is confusing and I would prefer "Today's value"

TODAY
The TODAY function returns the current system date. The time is set to 12:00 a.m.
TODAY()


I was surprised the first time I used it because I'm not acustomed to the AM/PM format.
I even filed a bug report about that.

But I was said that 12:00AM is 0h0m0s . I checked and it's really the way the spreadsheet behaves.

For other way to enter the date, my own practice is that if we enter only the date, the time component of the date_time value (there is no date or time object but only date_time ones) is 0h 0m 0s.

If we enter only the time, the date component is the current date.

If we extract the time component of a date value then redefine it as a date_time, the date component is 01/01/1904.

Example

in C2 enter:
6/6/2009
in C3 enter:
=NOW()
in D2 and D3 enter:
=TIME(0,0,TIMEVALUE(C) 24*6060)
apply a format displaying the date component.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE samedi 6 juin 2009 20:56:32)

quantumhobbit wrote:
The right click menu worked. I can't get your script to work in Numbers though.

The script does exactly what it is designed to do:
it install new formats in Numbers's resource file.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 7 juin 2009 10:52:37)

I tested with other programs.

It appears that Apple behaves correctly.

12:00 AM is the correct display for 00:00:00 in the AM/PM format.

It's another example of a cultural feature which doesn't match what we name "logic".

It's funny because in the French localized version it behaves the same even if here nobody will use that.
For every Frenchy, 12:00 AM means noon.
I will send a report about this localization oddity.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 7 juin 2009 10:58:18)

first off, whats the formatting in the cell set to?
Jason

did that. When it is set this way and you insert date & time, you can see that only the date is typed in.

Jason

*We all need to use the feedback option and submit a bug report concerning this.*

Jason