How to get a date merge field to show a date 60 days in the future

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George - 01 Mar 2006 14:10 GMT

I need to be able, when a document is printing in Word to populate a date
merge field that is 60 days in the future - I have tried multiple formats -
but haven't been able to figure it out. Anyone know how to do this?

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Graham Mayor - 01 Mar 2006 14:23 GMT

This is rather complicated but see
http://www.gmayor.com/insert_a_date_other_than_today.htm
and especially www.wopr.com/cgi-bin/w3t/showthreaded.pl?Number=249902

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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> I need to be able, when a document is printing in Word to populate a
> date merge field that is 60 days in the future - I have tried
> multiple formats - but haven't been able to figure it out. Anyone
> know how to do this?

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George - 01 Mar 2006 15:08 GMT

Graham - WOW - thank you - I think this should work for me - clearly I need
to wait until tomorrow to see if the date changes in the document. By the
way - will the date update automatically WITHOUT a user having to use the
"update Fields" right-click action? I guess I'll find out tomorrow....... I
was hoping for it to update automatically upon printing.

Thanks again!

> This is rather complicated but see
> http://www.gmayor.com/insert_a_date_other_than_today.htm
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> > multiple formats - but haven't been able to figure it out. Anyone
> > know how to do this?

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Graham Mayor - 01 Mar 2006 15:14 GMT

Whether or not the calculated date field updates will depend on what field
you base the calculated date on.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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--
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

> Graham - WOW - thank you - I think this should work for me - clearly
> I need to wait until tomorrow to see if the date changes in the
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>>> multiple formats - but haven't been able to figure it out. Anyone
>>> know how to do this?

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George - 01 Mar 2006 17:23 GMT

Graham - thanks AGAIN for replying. I guess, after reading through the
document - I am not getting something. You write:

"will depend on what field you base the calculated date on."

This is probably my ignorance on this formal stuff - but I am not really
basing it (i think) on anything.

I am using the merge field from - the macropod link you gave me - on page 7
the section titled:

Calculate a day, date, month and year, using n (301) days delay

When I toggle the field - the ONE difference I see in the formula used there
and the one on the screen shot on YOUR website is that mine simply says
"DATE" instead of "CREATEDATE" Is this what you mean by "field you base the
calculated date on"?

Also - my SET delay is set to 60.

So to clarify - my need is:

When a user prints a document today - a date 60 days from today will
auto-populate. when they print it tomorrow - it will print a date 60 days
from tomorrow.

Thank SO MUCH for your time - I really appreciate it, Graham!!

George

> Whether or not the calculated date field updates will depend on what field
> you base the calculated date on.
[quoted text clipped - 24 lines]
> >>> multiple formats - but haven't been able to figure it out. Anyone
> >>> know how to do this?

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Graham Mayor - 02 Mar 2006 07:17 GMT

I used CREATEDATE because most people don't want the dates to change on
letters they have created when they are opened in the future. If you use
DATE as the basis for the calculation, the calculation is based on the
system date of the PC and thus it always references that date before
performing the calculation. Which you would use depends really on what you
are doing. If you want to print the same document on different days with
different dates then leave it as DATE.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<>

> Graham - thanks AGAIN for replying. I guess, after reading through
> the document - I am not getting something. You write:
[quoted text clipped - 71 lines]
>>>>> have tried multiple formats - but haven't been able to figure it
>>>>> out. Anyone know how to do this?

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Charles Kenyon - 01 Mar 2006 17:29 GMT

The simplest way to do this may be to create another field in your data
source and do the calculation there. Excel and Access both handle dates
better than Word. Otherwise, it can be done in Word, but this is more
complex than you might imagine. See
http://addbalance.com/word/datefields2.htm for information on the different
kinds of ways to make a date calculation work. It includes links to
utilities to create the fields and an explanation of different macros that
can be used instead of fields. It also has a link to
www.wopr.com/cgi-bin/w3t/showthreaded.pl?Number=249902 which is a document
with various fields already created.

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Charles Kenyon

Word New User FAQ & Web Directory: http://addbalance.com/word

Intermediate User's Guide to Microsoft Word (supplemented version of
Microsoft's Legal Users' Guide) http://addbalance.com/usersguide

See also the MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/ which is awesome!
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>I need to be able, when a document is printing in Word to populate a date
> merge field that is 60 days in the future - I have tried multiple
> formats -
> but haven't been able to figure it out. Anyone know how to do this?

Reply to this Message