The applications of discrete-time signal-processing techniques, such as windowing and filtering for the purpose of implementing accurate excitation schemes in the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method are demonstrated. The effects of smoothing windows of various lengths and digital lowpass filters of various bandwidths and characteristics are investigated on finite-source excitations of the FDTD computational domain. Both single-frequency sinusoidal signals and multifrequency arbitrary signals are considered.