Insert merge field not merging dates correctly.

[Charlene]

I'm using Office 2003.
I have a database in Excel.
I have a column with dates. These are in dd/mm/yyyy format.

I want to create a letter in Word.
I use 'Insert Merge Field' to merge the specific data I need.
When I view the merged data, the dates are not in the same format as they
are in Excel.

In Excel, they are in Date format - dd/mm/yyyy
In Word, they are General format - have no specific number format.

How do I change the format in Word, to be what I have saved it as in Excel??

Someone please help!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

The first thing to try is to use Alt-F9 to reveal the field codes in Word -
if you see e.g.

{ MERGEFIELD myfield }

or

{ MERGEFIELD myfield \*Mergeformat }

change it to

{ MERGEFIELD \@"DD/MM/YYYY" }

then press F9 again and try merging to a new document as a test. Make sure
you are not still getting MM/DD/YYYY format, particularly where the MM and
DD are ambiguous, e.g. 7th June/6th July.

Peter Jamieson