# How to make the messy date ticks organized

**URL:** <https://community.plotly.com/t/how-to-make-the-messy-date-ticks-organized/7477>\
**Category:** Dash Python\
**Created:** [December 27, 2017, 2:12am UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/how-to-make-the-messy-date-ticks-organized/7477 "2017-12-27T02:12:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![chriddyp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/user_avatar/community.plotly.com/chriddyp/32/16855_2.png) [@chriddyp](https://community.plotly.com/u/chriddyp)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/how-to-make-the-messy-date-ticks-organized/7477/3 "2018-01-02T18:33:15Z")

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@MapleYU  
For Dates, Plotly accepts two things:

1. Strings that are formatted like `YYYY-MM-DD`, e.g. `'2015-01-01'` (No other format is accepted)
2. Datetime objects

If the x-axis data is in one of those two forms, then Plotly will automatically use a date axis which will format your axes correctly.

In your example, your date strings are formatted as `YYYY/MM/DD` and so Plotly is treating your axes as categorical strings instead of nicely formatted as spaced dates.

Then, you can format the date axes using the `tickformat` key. Here is an example:

```python
dcc.Graph(figure={
    'data': [{
        'x': ['2015-01-01', '2015-01-10 15:30:12', '2015-04-01'],
        'y': [2, 1, 5]
    }],
    'layout': {
        'xaxis': {
            'tickformat': '%y/%m'
        }
    }
})

```

In this case, `'tickformat;: '%y/%m'` will display the dates as e.g. `16/09`. Here is the full list of tickformat options:

```auto
    %a - abbreviated weekday name.*
    %A - full weekday name.*
    %b - abbreviated month name.*
    %B - full month name.*
    %c - the locale's date and time, such as %x, %X.*
    %d - zero-padded day of the month as a decimal number [01,31].
    %e - space-padded day of the month as a decimal number [1,31]; equivalent to %_d.
    %f - microseconds as a decimal number [000000, 999999].
    %H - hour (24-hour clock) as a decimal number [00,23].
    %I - hour (12-hour clock) as a decimal number [01,12].
    %j - day of the year as a decimal number [001,366].
    %m - month as a decimal number [01,12].
    %M - minute as a decimal number [00,59].
    %L - milliseconds as a decimal number [000, 999].
    %p - either AM or PM.*
    %Q - milliseconds since UNIX epoch.
    %s - seconds since UNIX epoch.
    %S - second as a decimal number [00,61].
    %u - Monday-based (ISO 8601) weekday as a decimal number [1,7].
    %U - Sunday-based week of the year as a decimal number [00,53].
    %V - ISO 8601 week of the year as a decimal number [01, 53].
    %w - Sunday-based weekday as a decimal number [0,6].
    %W - Monday-based week of the year as a decimal number [00,53].
    %x - the locale's date, such as %-m/%-d/%Y.*
    %X - the locale's time, such as %-I:%M:%S %p.*
    %y - year without century as a decimal number [00,99].
    %Y - year with century as a decimal number.
    %Z - time zone offset, such as -0700, -07:00, -07, or Z.
    %{n}f for fractional seconds with n digits. For example, 2016-10-13 09:15:23.456 with tickformat %H~%M~%S.%2f would display 09~15~23.46*
    %% - a literal percent sign (%).

```

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