# Current date

The **Current date** widget lets you insert the current date into a Notepad document. Use the [insertion menu](../embed-widgets/index.md) to add it to your document.

The widget can also be configured to auto-update the displayed date on page reload. In addition, in document templates the current date widget can be configured to freeze the displayed date during template generation.

![date\_section](../../../assets/c05ed9d202289615320d31f519b1b03b7914bc5e6f087c2eb83616cfed6cc98a.webp)

## Widget properties

* **Auto-update date:** If enabled, the date displayed will automatically update to the current date on document load. This option is disabled by default.
* **Select date format and timezone:** Allows selection of the format and the timezone that the date should be displayed in.
  * The available options for date format are:
    * Date,
    * Date and Time,
    * Date and Time (short),
    * ISO instant, and
    * Time.
  * By default, the timezone is set to the user's timezone. This means that the time is displayed in the timezone of the user viewing the document. Alternatively, you can pick a static time zone (e.g. `Europe/London` or `America/New_York`).

## Template configuration

* **Freeze date on template generation:** If enabled, the date widget will display the date as of generation time after going through the template generation process. For more information, refer to the docs on [generating and exporting documents from templates](../workshop-templates/index.md).