MS Word Mailmerge 'Auto-Date' problem. 1

[1DMF]

Hi,

It has come to light that our document management system has a major flaw.

We use templates for mailmerging to create letter to members, these are auto-stored against each members account.

However, if one of these saved documents is opened the date field changes to the current date, rather than showing the date the document was created.

I assume there is an issue with the auto-date field that has been used in the original mailmerge template.

The document management system even saves the docs as 'Read Only', but still the date changes?

What can we do to fix this?

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

Are you not using CREATEDATE?

Skip,

_{Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE!}

 

[1DMF]

The person who created the template is using this when I toggle fieldcodes.

{DATE \@ "dd MMMM yyyy"}

But I've tried the following...

Insert->Field->Date and Time->CreateDate

And I get

13/07/2005 10:48:00

OK I thought, this is the date the 'template' was created but when I run a mailmerge, the newly created doc doesn't have today's date it has

13/07/2005 10:48:00

any other ideas?




"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[1DMF]

I've spoken with the missus, she says do not use Insert->Field->blah blah and do not use CREATEDATE.

from the toolbar use Insert->DateTime , choose date format and ensure 'Update Automatically' is NOT ticked.

Although this again sounds wrong because you do want the template to update automatically, what it's actually saying in the usual 'makes no sense to no one but MS'...

It will auto update the template date with current date but the resulting mailmerge doc will retain that original creation date and will not update the date when the doc is opened sometime in the future!

Yeah thanks MS for making Dates & Times nice and easy as usual!



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[macropod]

Hi all,

In a mailmerge, a CREATEDATE field returns the creation date of the mailmerge main document as plain text, not a CREATEDATE field containing the creation date of the output file – or even a textual representation of that. You can overcome that with an ordinary DATE field (which ordinarily survives a mailmerge, but the drawback with these is that they update every time the document is opened. To prevent that, you can force the mailmerge process to convert the field to plain text instead of having to remember to do so afterwards. You do this by inserting the DATE field in a simple IF field coded as:
{IF =1 {DATE \@ "dd MMMM yyyy"}}

So, MDF:
1. Select the existing date field in the mailmerge main document (ie the one that shows {DATE \@ "dd MMMM yyyy"} when you toggle fieldcodes).
2. Press Ctrl-F9 to embed the date field in a new field.
3. Type 'IF =1 ' at the start of the new field.
4. Run your mailmerge.

For the *existing* output documents, toggle the fieldcode display and change 'DATE' to 'CREATEDATE'.

Cheers

[MS MVP - Word]

 

[1DMF]

I've done what you say but when I switch -> toggle fieldcodes back no date is shown in the document, it's blank?



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!

 

[macropod]

Hi 1DMF,

In that casae, you haven't coded the field exactly as I described - you've probably omitted the space between 'IF' and '='.

Cheers

[MS MVP - Word]

 

[1DMF]

Could have been that, not sure , I just deleted it again and re-entered and it works a treat.

Many thanks.



"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you."

"If a shortcut was meant to be easy, it wouldn't be a shortcut, it would be the way!