Mailmerge date format

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Ocean - 27 Mar 2006 16:36 GMT

I using mailmerge to take some dates out of an Access DB to merge into some
letters. The date format in the DB is correct (eg UK format dd/mm/yyyy). But
when I mailmerge, it comes out as mm/dd/yyyy - USA format. The regional
settings are correct. But if I add following formatting data: \@"dd MMMM
yyyy" then it works. However, this is a faff having to modify this each
mailmerge letter I do - can this be set up as default ? It seems a bit poor
that Microsoft cant allow this formatting everytime. Any help would really
save my sanity ! Thanks

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 27 Mar 2006 18:08 GMT

Access is not actually storing the date in that format, just displaying it
that way. You can however use the format function in a query in Access to
force the date into the format that you want and use the query as the data
source for the mailmerge. Alternatively, create and autotext entry that
contains the mergefield with the switch and insert the autotext entry when
you want to insert the mergefield containing the date into your mail merge
main documents.

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Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>I using mailmerge to take some dates out of an Access DB to merge into some
> letters. The date format in the DB is correct (eg UK format dd/mm/yyyy).
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> that Microsoft cant allow this formatting everytime. Any help would really
> save my sanity ! Thanks

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Ocean - 28 Mar 2006 14:24 GMT

Hi, I created a query, and set the format to 'short date'. however, when I do
a mailmerge it still comes out as the US format (mm/dd/yyyy) rather than the
UK (dd/mm/yyyy) which is what I want. Why does it defalt to this, when all
settings are made for UK and not US? Any help would be appreciated... Thanks

> Access is not actually storing the date in that format, just displaying it
> that way. You can however use the format function in a query in Access to
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> > that Microsoft cant allow this formatting everytime. Any help would really
> > save my sanity ! Thanks

Reply to this Message

Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 28 Mar 2006 18:52 GMT

That is not using the format function. You need to create an expression in
the query that uses the function

Format([Field Name], "dd/MM/yyyy")

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

> Hi, I created a query, and set the format to 'short date'. however, when I
> do
[quoted text clipped - 31 lines]
>> > really
>> > save my sanity ! Thanks

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Word 2002 apparently has a bug - so no amount of formatting will show UK
date format

> That is not using the format function. You need to create an expression in
> the query that uses the function
[quoted text clipped - 52 lines]
> >> > really
> >> > save my sanity ! Thanks

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 09 Apr 2006 18:28 GMT

The use of the format() function in an Access query converts the data to
text. Once in that format, it is no longer treated as a Date data type.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

> Word 2002 apparently has a bug - so no amount of formatting will show UK
> date format
[quoted text clipped - 67 lines]
>> >> > really
>> >> > save my sanity ! Thanks

Reply to this Message