Insert Date Field

[xluser2007]

Hi All,

At work, we often produce end of financial year reports where the title will be:

Title: "Accounts for 30 June 2009".

As such, there are many dates that follow in the report text (50-60 of them potentially!) should ideally link to the title date value (in this case of 30 June 2009) when it is updated in the title. Currently all dates have to be manually updated along with the title date.

As such, could anyone please explain how to treat the date in the title as a merge field and link all relevant dates in the report to this title date field?

Please note: The reason why I am asking for merge field approach instead of a Find/ replace approach is that the latter may not always work as certain dates may need to remain at pre-specified values and not be changed just because the title date changes ot a new year.

Any help appreciated.

Kind regards

[fumei]

You may want to take a look at macropod's excellent tutorial on Word date fields.

http://www.wopr.com/index.php?showtopic=249902


Essentially, you want the title date to be a field, or something that you can refer to elsewhere.

If the date in the title was a formfield (set as a Date) - say, named TitleDate, then if is Calculate on exit, and you have other fields {TitleDate}, then when you put the date information in TitleDate, all those other fields will change to its value. 50, 60, 1000...they will all change.

[xluser2007]

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for your help.

I've tsarted looking through Macropod's impressive document. though I couldn't find the section on actually highlighting an inuput date (i.e. in my case the title date) and then referenceing it in other parts of the document.

I'm very new to Merge fields etc, hence the newbie queries.

[macropod]

Hi xluser,

Yoy don't need a mergefield. All you need is a bookmarked date that you can refer to elsewhere via a cross-reference. My tutorial is aimed at issues associated with calculating and formatting dates. If you've already got the date somewhere in your document, you can select that date and bookmark it (eg 'MyDate'), via Insert|Bookmark. You can then replicate that date anywhere you want, via Insert|Cross-reference> Bookmark.

[xluser2007]

Hi macropod,

Many thanks for that tip, works a treat.

Though after looking at your fantastic tutorial, I think having it as a Merge field may be the way to go in terms of getting the relevant formats done correctly when it is applied in the various places in the report.

For example the report would read something as the simple example attached.

Using a Merge field seems like the ideal way to go given that you can link based on formulas (e.g. display the date 6 months prior to the valuation date).

As such, could you please help to set up this simple example using a Mergefield opr other approach as you see relevant?

Sinceley appreciate your help :thumb.

[xluser2007]

Example from the previous post is attached.

[macropod]

Hi xluser,

Except for a solitary example inthe tuorial relating the date calculations in a mailmerge context, there are no mergefields in the tutorial. Neither do you require any for the output you require.

As for the outputs you require, the first two require no more than bookmarking your 'TitleDate' and inserting cross-references to it with the appropriate formatting switches. The third output can use the tutorial's 'Calculate a day, date, month and year, using n months delay', plus changing the 'Delay value and replacing the 'Date' expression with whatever bookmark you give to your 'TitleDate'. All the info you need is in the tutorial.

[fumei]

xluser, I just want to reiterate macropod's post. As far as I can see, you do NOT need a mergefield. If you are replicating information, all you need is a field that refers to the originating field/bookmark.

So, to repeat, if TitleDate is bookmarked, you can do want you seem to want. Yes, it may be a bit slow going through the massive amount of information in macropod's tutorial sink in, but if you do, you will be much better off.

[xluser2007]

xluser, I just want to reiterate macropod's post. As far as I can see, you do NOT need a mergefield. If you are replicating information, all you need is a field that refers to the originating field/bookmark.

So, to repeat, if TitleDate is bookmarked, you can do want you seem to want. Yes, it may be a bit slow going through the massive amount of information in macropod's tutorial sink in, but if you do, you will be much better off.
Hi Gerry and macropod,

Sincere thanks for your help and advice.

I guess when I scanned through macropod's tutorial quickly I went through and toggled field for most of his examples, hence assuming that it was all due to Merge fields as opposed to using bookmarks.

As such, I'll go through the tutorial and try to understand how to do the above, but will post back with further queries as they arise.