UK dates in database appearing as US dates in a mail merge document

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Mellstock - 23 May 2008 22:04 GMT

I run a an invoices database on my home computer using microsoft
access 2000 and word 2000. New invoices are printed from a mail merge
into word from a "new invoices query". The dates on the invoice are
entered in european format dd/mm/yyyy and merge into the mail merge
document without difficulty.

Recently I tried doing the same on my computer at work, loading the
database and merge document from a memory stick. The Microsoft Access
program says it is in Access 2000 file format and Word is ? 2003. The
dates in the database are european format but when merged into the
Word document the dates from merged fields appear as US format.

How can I make them appear as European format?

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Tom van Stiphout - 24 May 2008 02:30 GMT

Use the Format function to be explicit about what date format you
want.
select Format(MyDateField, "dd/mm/yyyy") from SomeTable

-Tom.

>I run a an invoices database on my home computer using microsoft
>access 2000 and word 2000. New invoices are printed from a mail merge
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
>How can I make them appear as European format?

Reply to this Message

david@epsomdotcomdotau - 24 May 2008 07:12 GMT

Your work computer is in US format. Or Word on your work
computer is in US format. Dates internal in Access and Excel
are just numbers (in Double format). Dates only become US
format or European format when they are displayed. The
general answer is that if you want your Word mail merge dates
to be in European format, you should set up Word and Windows
and your mail merge document so that they are.

However, you would need to ask in a Word forum to find
out how to do that, and it can be a bit tricky in some versions
of Word.

And you probably don't need a general mail merge document
that works for any data source.

So the other approach is to convert the dates from numbers
before you merge them, using a query with a calculated field
using the FORMAT function.

Of course, that can be tricky too, because with some versions
of Word it can be hard to find your special queries, so if you
need to hand this off to another person, you are better off learning
how to Format dates in Word calculated fields.

(david)

> I run a an invoices database on my home computer using microsoft
> access 2000 and word 2000. New invoices are printed from a mail merge
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> How can I make them appear as European format?

Reply to this Message