Forum Discussion
Date field shows one day earlier in SharePoint document preview (Word Online)
Hi everyone,
we’re experiencing an issue with custom date field in SharePoint Online when previewing Word documents in the browser.
| Context | Displayed | Position |
| Word Desktop (opened locally | 28.07.2025 | left |
| SharePoint Preview (Word Online) | 27.07.2025 | middle |
| SharePoint library (column view) | 28.07.2025 | right |
Additional details:
- Both the site and user profile time zones are set to:
(UTC+02:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna. - The issue affects multiple documents and users.
The moment the document is opened locally in Word Desktop, the date is displayed correctly again.
Thanks in advance for any insights or guidance!
Update / Workaround Found
It turns out the issue is related to how the Preview Pane (Word Online) handles time zone conversion. Even though both the site and user profile are correctly set to (UTC+02:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna, the preview seems to interpret the value as UTC.
Workaround I applied:
• Don’t use a pure Date column.
• Change the column type to DateTime instead.
• Add a time value and adjust it so that, after conversion, the correct date is displayed in the Word Online preview.
With this change, the values now match between Word Online Preview and the SharePoint library view. In Word Desktop the date was always displayed correctly anyway.
2 Replies
Update / Workaround Found
It turns out the issue is related to how the Preview Pane (Word Online) handles time zone conversion. Even though both the site and user profile are correctly set to (UTC+02:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna, the preview seems to interpret the value as UTC.
Workaround I applied:
• Don’t use a pure Date column.
• Change the column type to DateTime instead.
• Add a time value and adjust it so that, after conversion, the correct date is displayed in the Word Online preview.
With this change, the values now match between Word Online Preview and the SharePoint library view. In Word Desktop the date was always displayed correctly anyway.Update / Workaround Found
It turns out the issue is related to how the Preview Pane (Word Online) handles time zone conversion. Even though both the site and user profile are correctly set to (UTC+02:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna, the preview seems to interpret the value as UTC.
Workaround I applied:- Don’t use a pure Date column.
- Change the column type to DateTime instead.
- Add a time value and adjust it so that, after conversion, the correct date is displayed in the Word Online preview.
With this change, the values now match between Word Online Preview and the SharePoint library view. In Word Desktop the date was always displayed correctly anyway.