How do I control date formatting in a Word Mail Merge?

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Ric McWaters - 21 Apr 2005 14:07 GMT

I am using MS-Word 2003 (11.5604.5606) with Excel 2003 (11.5612.5606) to do a
mail merge which includes a date from the spreadsheet. In previous versions
of Word and Excel, the resultant mail merge file displayed the date in the
format used to display the date in Excel. In the current version, it picks
up the date from the Regional and Language options set for the computer. I
reset the Regional and Language options settings to DD-MMM-YY, but this makes
the rest of the things I do look weird. Is there any way to force Word to
use the formatting in Excel?

Reply to this Message

Peter Jamieson - 21 Apr 2005 16:23 GMT

The simplest way is to revert to the old method - chck Word
Tools|Options|General|"Confirm conversion at open", go through the process
of connecting to your Excel sheet again, and select the DDE option when it
is offered.

Alternatively, you can use date format switches, e.g. instead of

{ MERGEFIELD mydate }
use
{ MERGEFIELD mydate \@"DD-MMM-YY" }

but you may find that the day and month appear the wrong way around in some
cases.

Peter Jamieson

>I am using MS-Word 2003 (11.5604.5606) with Excel 2003 (11.5612.5606) to do
>a
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> the rest of the things I do look weird. Is there any way to force Word to
> use the formatting in Excel?

Reply to this Message