date changes

[G. Michael Paine]

In WordX when I open a doc, usually a letter the date changes to the
current date. How do I prevent this when creating the original doc?

MP

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Insert a CREATEDATE field instead of a DATE field. Via Insert menu if you
are accustomed to inserting the Date by keyboard shortcut, or you can view
field codes and manually edit the DATE field.

DM

 

[Vi]

What about preventing date changes to older document, that have
already been created? How can I open them without the date
automatically updating to today's date?

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

They will update, b/c they are DATE fields. But Word still knows when they
were created, so if you change the field to CREATEDATE, and then hit F9 to
update it, the date will change to the date of creation. Which presumably
is the date on the original letter.

Dayo

 

[Elliott Roper]

They will update, b/c they are DATE fields. But Word still knows when they
were created, so if you change the field to CREATEDATE, and then hit F9 to
update it, the date will change to the date of creation. Which presumably
is the date on the original letter.

Dayo

Hi Dayo,
That's cool. I never knew that. I have hundreds of old letters with
date fields. I just laughed sympathetically at Vi's question.

It's why I like this group so much. Even when you think you know
something well, you can still learn new tricks.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

That's cool. I never knew that. I have hundreds of old letters with
date fields. I just laughed sympathetically at Vi's question.

It's why I like this group so much. Even when you think you know
something well, you can still learn new tricks.

Well, to be honest, I had to test it myself on some old documents before I
posted it.

Dayo

 

[Clive Huggan]

Vi and Michael,

Just a little comment to add to Dayo's spot-on solution.

If you need to convert the date fields frequently on opening documents, you
might think it's worthwhile to have a toolbar that you can have next to your
documents. See Appendix D: Making a toolbar with buttons for a variety of
date formats in "Bend Word to your Will", at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/Bend/BendWord.htm (don't download the
template yet, though -- you won't need it and there's a minor glitch in a
style title on it. It has been corrected; it will be uploaded on the web
page soon).

If you have a large number of documents that you want to convert in the one
exercise, the "Find and Replace" command is probably best.

-- Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia

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