How do I stop the current date appearing in a document that was s.

[Guest]

When I open a previous letter Word automatically puts in the current date.
This is causing problems as I often have to print off previous letters and
need to have the original date on them. Can anyone help please

 

[Greg]

How are you putting the date on your letters to begin with? If you are
using Insert>Date and Time then change the setting in that dialog box
so the date does not update automatically. If you are using a template
with a DATE field, then change it to a CREATEDATE field. For existing
letters, you can select the date, right click, toggle field codes and
change to CREATEDATE.

I use a date stamp macro assigned to a keyboard shortcut to insert
todays date:

Sub DateStamp()
' Inserts current date
Selection.InsertDateTime DateTimeFormat:="MMMM dd, yyyy", _
InsertAsField:=False
End Sub

 

[Joseph McGuire]

Depending on how your original letter (or template, whether it is really a
Word template or not, i.e., the name ends in *.dot instead of, e.g., *.doc)
there may be an even simpler way. Open your template, and look at the date.
If it shows today's date, then you probably told Word to "Update
Automatically" when you originally inserted the date. In Word 2000, there
is a box you can check in the Insert, Date & Time window to Update
Automatically. If so, that's your problem. To fix it, delete the old date
entry completely. Insert the date again, this time making sure that you
have unchecked the automatic updating. Then save the changes to your
template.

This will fix the problem of opening old letters and documents and finding
today's date on them. But now you will have another (small) problem: each
time you open the template to re-use it you will have to change the date. I
found it easier to leave the date out of my templates altogether because an
old date is another typo that can slip into the mail unnoticed and make you
look unprofessional. I found it better to replace the date in the template
with nice big capital letters reminding me to, uh, "insert the date,
stupid!" Now if I forget to insert the date, the mistake will be pretty
darned obvious when I proof read it. This method is 99% effective for me.
Since I'm the guy they call stupid, you may get better results.

If you are frequently re-using an old letter or other document as a form or
template to create others, you might want to consider using a Word template.
It might save you a bit of work and prevent accidentally wiping out your
"template." It's pretty easy.

 

[Charles Kenyon]

You are using a DATE or TIME field rather than a CREATEDATE field. This
field should be put in the original template if possible (instead of
inserting using the keyboard shortcut or header/footer toolbar button).

In the document in question, press Alt-F9 to display field codes. Then
change the field to a CREATEDATE field, press F9 and then Alt-F9.

See http://addbalance.com/word/datefields1.htm for information on the
different kinds of datefields and how to format them.

--

Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://www.mvps.org/word which is awesome!
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