I dont need a date

[dolph]

Looked in Word help but dont seem to be able to stop this problem. I am not a great letter writer, usually restricted to "official" letters to Tax, Utilities, Banks etc.

However when I have written such letters and kept a copy in my Word files when I go back to them I find the date of them is not the date I wrote them on, but the date I open them on.

This causes problems when I have to back refer to a letter I have sent previously but I cannot be certain the date I originally sent it. Whilst properties will tell me date I worked on it is this the actual date I dated it?

Basically how can I ensure that whn I save a letter to file the date of the letter stays as in the original. I have been to format and unticked automatic dating but nothing happens.

As usual many thanks in advance from this silver surfer

 

[uzziel49]

I'm guessing you've got dates in your letters which are using field codes. Put your cursor on the date in question, right click and then left click on "Toggle Field Codes". You should then see instead of your date someting like this :-

{ DATE \@ "dd MMMM yyyy" }

The DATE in this text is a field code and basically tells Word that it should insert the current date at that point in the document.

With the field code shown in the document, you can update it to one of the following :-

CREATEDATE - the date the document was created (or saved using "Save As")
PRINTDATE - the date the document was last printed
SAVEDATE - the date the document was last saved

Just type one of those field codes instead of DATE. When you've done that, right click on the field code text, then left click again on "Toggle Field Codes" - you should see a date which corresponds to which ever field code you decided to use.

That will solve your problem with existing documents. For new documents, you can insert dates using Insert from the menu bar, then Field. In the dialog shown, choose Date and Time under Categories. You will then see a number of options below, including CreateDate, EditDate, PrintDate and SaveDate. Select one of those with your cursor, then in the middle of the dialog choose a format for your date. When done, click Ok. Your chosen date should be displayed as per your requirement.

Alternatively, just delete the date that Word inserts into the document for you and manually type the date you want - Word can't update that as it's static text.

P.S. The directions I've given above are for Word 2003, should be similar for other versions.

Hope this helps.