Dates in letters

[roger.corke]

When I type a date in a Word document such as a letter,
up comes uuninvited a little window which automatically
inserts the date for me. What's more, it does it even
though I have just typed the date in myself and types it
in American style ie. month followed by day followed by
year. So if I type in 18 May, 2004, I will end up with 18
May,2004-05-18.

Leaving aside of how anyone designing such a ludicrous
system can end up as the richest man in the world, can
anyone tell me:
(a) how to switch this date system off, and
(b) make sure that any date system that is on Word
conforms to the British day/month style rather than the
American style.

Many thanks

Roger Corke

 

[garfield-n-odie]

The "uninvited little window" sounds like the AutoComplete suggestion
box. As the name says, it is just a suggestion. If you press the Enter
key after the suggestion box pops up, you accept Word's suggestion to
automatically insert the date in the default format. If you press any
other key (e.g., space bar) when the suggestion box pops up, you decline
Word's suggestion.

You probably don't want to turn off the AutoComplete suggestion box if
you use AutoText regularly. Nonetheless, to turn off the AutoComplete
suggestion box, you have to open your normal.dot file, click on Insert
-> AutoText -> AutoText, click on the AutoText tab, and uncheck the
"Show AutoComplete suggestions" box. While you've got normal.dot open,
you can change the default date format by clicking on Insert -> Date and
Time -> choose the format you want in the "Available formats" box ->
Default. Save your normal.dot file (make sure it actually saves... you
might have to type something and then delete what you typed before you
are allowed to save), and close and restart Word to make your normal.dot
changes take effect.

Hope this helps. garfield-n-odie

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Hi Garfield-n-Odie,
You shouldn't need to be in Normal.dot to do either of those things. You can
turn off AutoComplete via Tools | AutoCorrect, AutoText tab, uncheck the box
about "show prompt". You can do the same default date change from any doc.

Roger, also note that Word picks up a lot of its dates, etc, settings, from
your regional settings in Windows.

DM