# Timestamp formatting

Most views that show timestamps are displayed in the same time format. The unified timestamp format can be changed in the Preferences page. To get to that page, click on Window -> Preferences -> Tracing -> Time Format. Then a window will show the time format preferences.

The preference page has several subsections:

- Current Format a format string generated by the page
- Sample Display an example of a timestamp formatted with the Current Format string.
- Time Zone the time zone to use when displaying the time. The value Local time corresponds to the local, system-configured, time zone.
- Data and Time format how to format the date (days/months/years) and the time (hours/minutes/seconds)
- Sub-second format how much precision is shown for the sub-second units
- Date delimiter the character used to delimit the date units such as months and years
- Time delimiter the character to separate super-second time units such as seconds and minutes
- Sub-Second Delimiter the character to separate the sub-second groups such as milliseconds and nanoseconds
- Restore Defaults restores the system settings
- Apply apply changes

This will update all the displayed timestamps.