DATE filed in Word. How to paste as value

[MarkBeck]

Hi

I have some templates in Word that incorporate DATE fields. These are subjected to Mail merge and saved as new documents. I constantly encounter the problem of "changed dates" when opening the documents later.

Is there a way to somehow paste the DATE as a value rather then the field code? Often there are hundreds of pages and i need to systematically go from page to page and manually replace the code with static dates.

Thanks

Mark Beck

 

[macropod]

Hi Mark,

That sounds like you're using the wrong field - instead of a DATE field, you probably need a CREATEDATE field.

Even without that, you can convert the existing date fields to plain text by selecting the document (eg Ctrl-A) then pressing Ctrl-Shift-F9. This would be best done immediately after the mail merge has taken place.

For existing documents, you can revert the date fields to the date the document was created, or last saved, by pressing Alt-F9 then using Find/Replace to change all 'DATE' strings in fields to either 'CREATEDATE' or 'SAVEDATE', depending on which best suits your needs. 'PRINTDATE' is another possibility. Then press Alt-F9 again to toggle the field code, followed by selecting the document (eg Ctrl-A) then pressing F9 to update all fields. If you used the 'SAVEDATE' solution, you'll still need to use Ctrl-Shift-F9, otherwise the field data will update again as soon as you save the changes - the same goes for 'PRINTDATE', which will update next time you print the document.

Cheers

[MS MVP - Word]

 

[MarkBeck]

Thanks MacroPod and seasons greetings