Scheduling from New York for Central time
Going from Eastern to Central means taking an hour off. A 9:00 AM Eastern webinar starts at 8:00 AM Central, and a 7:15 PM Eastern call ends the working day at 6:15 PM for someone in Chicago. Enter an Eastern time in the box or press Use now.
If you are on the East Coast and invite Central colleagues, the likely trouble is the early end. An 8:00 AM Eastern start is 7:00 AM Central, which some people find too early for a standing meeting. The hour-by-hour table maps a 9:00 to 17:00 Eastern day onto the Central clock, where it runs 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, so you can see how much of the Central day you are asking for.
On abbreviations: people say EST for Eastern time all year, but in summer the correct name is EDT. The same goes for CST and CDT. Mixing them is common and harmless here, since the one-hour gap stays the same all year except for a few hours on clock-change nights, but the page tells you which name is in effect on the date you picked.
The date only changes in the first hour after midnight: 12:30 AM Eastern is 11:30 PM the previous day on the Central clock, and the result says so. The swap button reverses the direction when you need to answer the other side.
Worked examples
Questions about this tool
Do I add or subtract to go from EST to CST?
Subtract one hour. Central is one hour behind Eastern.
Which part of a New York workday is also inside the Chicago workday?
Almost all of it. A 9:00 to 17:00 day in New York is 8:00 to 16:00 in Chicago, so only the first Chicago hour comes before a 9:00 start.
Can I use this for a flight or a broadcast time?
Yes, for the clock conversion. Make sure you know whether the published time is local to the venue or to a fixed zone before you convert.
Related tools
Where this comes from: IANA time zone database and the rules behind it ยท US Department of Transportation, uniform time and daylight saving time