Mail merg date format

[Graham Bennet]

Hello All,

Office XP; When I try to import data to a Word document from Excel using
Mail Merg, the date
format changes from the UK format in Excel to American format in the Word
document.
I cannot find out why the format would change. Can anyone please help me on
this, as all the
date formats on my system are set to UK format.

Thanks, Graham

 

[Beth Melton]

This is due to using a OLE DB data connection which reads the data in
the file rather than how it is viewed in Excel. IOW, all Word knows is
it is working with a date. The date format used in Excel is a property
of the cell which is not passed to Word.

There are two ways to workaround this:

- Use a DDE connection instead
- Use a date-time format switch for the merge field to format it

DDE:
- In Word under Tools/Options/General turn on "Confirm conversions at
open"
- Select the Excel data source again and when prompted select the DDE
method
Date-time format switch:
- Press Alt + F9 to toggle on the field codes
- At the end of the merge field add: \@ "dd/MMM/yyyy"
- Press Alt + F9 to toggle off the field codes
- Right-click the field and select Update field if necessary

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

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