Wrong date format in mail merge

[Trainer]

I am using Office 2007 on XP. I am doing a mail merge in Word with Excel as
my data file. I have 2 columns: name and date. My number format for Date
is set under Date Type to April 20, 2009, which is the spelled out date.
When it merges, I get 4/20/2009. How can I fix this?
Thanks.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Debra Dalgleish posted this:

There's an article on the Microsoft web site that might help you:

Answer Box: Numbers don't merge right in Word
http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/assistance/HA011164951033.aspx

And if you prefer the old Mail Merge helper, Word MVP Suzanne Barnhill
has instructions here:

http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/CustomizingWord2002.htm

about half way down the page.

==========
I often cheat instead of racking my brain.

I'll insert another column (probably hidden!) and use:
=text(a2,"ddmmyy")
or
=text(a2,"mm:ss.0")
or
=text(a2,"00000")
(or whatever format I want)
and use that field in the mailmerge.

(Cheating doesn't bother me anymore <vbg>.)

 

[macropod]

Hi Trainer,

To get the date format you want, you can add a formatting picture switch. In Word:
.. select the mergefield;
.. press Shift-F9 to expose the field coding. It should look something like {MERGEFIELD MyDate} where 'MyDate' is your mergefield's
name;
.. delete anything appearing after the mergefield's name and add '\@ "MMMM d, yyyy"' to the field, as in {MERGEFIELD MyDate \@ "MMMM
d, yyyy"}. With this switch your date will come out as April 20, 2009'. Other possible date formatting switches include:
. \@ "dddd, MMMM d, yyyy";
. \@ "ddd, MMM yyyy";
. \@ "MMM d, yyyy".
Note: Note: you can swap the d, M, y expressions around, but you must use uppercase 'M's for months.
.. position the cursor anywhere in this field and press F9 to update it;
.. run your mailmerge.