Insert date function misbehaving

[Guest]

I have Word 2003 SP2. When I retrieve a document with a date in the body of
the text which is a few months old, the date is automatically updated to the
current date even though the tick box for this function was not ticked.

I believe the affcted documents may have been originally typed using Word
97. (I updated my computer about two months ago and transferred the old
documents to the new computer. My old computer was running Win98SE with
Office 97 Pro)

Is there any way of preventing this since the dates in these letters, and
particularly invoices, are crucial.

Tony

 

[Jay Freedman]

If the dates that should appear are the dates the respective documents
were created, you can get them back. Each date is the result of a DATE
field. Right-click one and select Toggle Field Codes. In the code,
change the word DATE to CREATEDATE. Then right-click again and select
Update Field.

Whenever you want to insert a date that won't change, either insert a
CREATEDATE field to begin with (from the Insert > Field dialog), or
insert a date as you have been doing but then click on it and press
Ctrl+Shift+F9 to change it to plain text.

(Unchecking the "Automatically update" box in the Insert > Date dialog
should have inserted plain text as you expected, but clearly you now
have DATE fields, so something went wrong.)

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Jay Freedman]

If the dates that should appear are the dates the respective documents
were created, you can get them back. Each date is the result of a DATE
field. Right-click one and select Toggle Field Codes. In the code,
change the word DATE to CREATEDATE. Then right-click again and select
Update Field.

Whenever you want to insert a date that won't change, either insert a
CREATEDATE field to begin with (from the Insert > Field dialog), or
insert a date as you have been doing but then click on it and press
Ctrl+Shift+F9 to change it to plain text.

(Unchecking the "Automatically update" box in the Insert > Date dialog
should have inserted plain text as you expected, but clearly you now
have DATE fields, so something went wrong.)

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

(Unchecking the "Automatically update" box in the Insert > Date dialog

should have inserted plain text as you expected, but clearly you now
have DATE fields, so something went wrong.)

Also note that the current status of the check box has no bearing on the
dates that have already been inserted as fields; it applies only to the
dates that you are currently inserting. Note also that the Insert Date
button on the Header and Footer toolbar and the Alt+Shift+D shortcut both
insert DATE fields.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

(Unchecking the "Automatically update" box in the Insert > Date dialog

should have inserted plain text as you expected, but clearly you now
have DATE fields, so something went wrong.)

Also note that the current status of the check box has no bearing on the
dates that have already been inserted as fields; it applies only to the
dates that you are currently inserting. Note also that the Insert Date
button on the Header and Footer toolbar and the Alt+Shift+D shortcut both
insert DATE fields.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.