Forcing a date entry format of dd/mm/yyyy

[Blewis]

I am building an Access database. A colleague in Tanzania will use the Forms that I build to do data entry. I want him to be required to enter dates on the forms using a dd/mm/yyyy format and then be stored in the database using a mm/dd/yyy format.

I know that Access supposedly changes data formats based on your Microsoft Windows Regional and Language Options settings. I tried to change mine to Tanzania to test if the dates would change formats, but they did not (perhaps I did not set them correctly).

Regardless, is there a way to force a user (regardless of their regional settings) to enter a date in a Form using a dd/mm/yyyy format and then store it as mm/dd/yyyy?

 

[John W. Vinson]

I am building an Access database. A colleague in Tanzania will use the Forms that I build to do data entry. I want him to be required to enter dates on the forms using a dd/mm/yyyy format and then be stored in the database using a mm/dd/yyy format.

I know that Access supposedly changes data formats based on your Microsoft Windows Regional and Language Options settings. I tried to change mine to Tanzania to test if the dates would change formats, but they did not (perhaps I did not set them correctly).

Regardless, is there a way to force a user (regardless of their regional settings) to enter a date in a Form using a dd/mm/yyyy format and then store it as mm/dd/yyyy?

No, not even in principle. A date of 04/05/2014 could be the Fourth of May or
the Fifth of April. There is no way for any program, or person, to tell from
those ten keystrokes which date was in the mind of the person entering it.

Either use a Date Picker (such as the one that comes builtin to Access 2007
and later), or use an unambiguous date format such as yyyy-mm-dd.

Note that a Date/Time field in Access is NOT stored in mm/dd/yyyy or in any
other display format; it's stored as a Double Float number, a count of days
and fractions of a day since midnight, December 30, 1899. The format is
applied when you want to display that number.
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John W. Vinson [MVP]
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