Undesired Date Correction (Word 2007)

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Open a Word doc that is actually dated Sep 14, 1992, but the date appears as today’s date.

How is the automatic correction of the actual date to the current date disabled when opening a Word document?

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Is this a date in the document itself? If so, it is probably a date field. You can check this as follows: right-click on the date. If the popup menu contains an item “Toggle Field Codes”, it is a field.
You can unlink the field, i.e. remove the field and replace it with its current value, by clicking in the field and pressing Ctrl+Shift+F9.
Or you can lock the field, i.e. protect it against being updated, by clicking in it and pressing Ctrl+F11. If you ever want to unlock the field, click in it and press Ctrl+Shift+F11.

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Yes, the date is on the document itself. The origianl date was the date the letter was drafted & the context menu does contains an item “Toggle Field Codes”.

Clicking on the field and pressing pressing Ctrl+Shift+F9 or CTRL+F11 locks in the date of today. I need to print the letter as originally dated.

How do I prevent the original date of the letter from being changed and/or how do I get the orginal date the letter was drafted to appear?

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You can delete the date field, then select Insert | Field, select CreateDate in the list of fields and click OK. This will be the date the document was first created.

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Tried your suggestion, had a hard time deleting the field. No delete from context menu & would not delete just selecting only the date field. I finally selected inclusively two rows before & after the date field & pressed the delete button on keyboard.

In Word 2007, Insert > Quick Parts > Field > CreateDate (or SaveDate or PrintDate), yet the date comes out as today’s date or ‘XXX 0, 0000’, literally.

I will attach an example original document, one of many under review in the portfolio, so you may play with it.

We don’t have any older versions of Microsoft Office anymore, so I am unable to try older versions of Word. Do you suppose the issue might lie w/ Word 2007?

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The field is indeed a DATE field, i.e. it will always display the current date.

Word 2002 tells me that the document is actually a WordPerfect 5 document. I don’t know whether WP documents store information about the date they were created in their metadata; anyway Word doesn’t “see” it because it has to convert the document from WP format to Word format, so it will always see today as the create date.
So the create date in Windows Explorer is the only information that you have, and I don’t know how dependable that is.

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I can think of two ways that you could do this.

• Delete the field, and insert the original date manually. This will then be fixed text and will not change.
• Change the Date on your computer. Then Update the Field, and finally lock the field before putting correcting the date on your computer again.
  [/list]StuartR

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Hi, Stuart ~

I really don’t know what the original date is, so it would be unethical to guess or make one up & enter it manually.

I tried viewing it in WordPad & NotePad to see if the original date would reveal itself but most of the text is garbled. The file property indicates a create date of August 1994, but it is imperative this and all other historical documents in the portfolio have the original date for viewing/printing when they go to review.

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> How do I prevent the original date of the letter from being changed and/or
> how do I get the orginal date the letter was drafted to appear?

I’m not aware of any way to lock a field code without opening the document in Word.

There are viewers that would let you see the field result value that is in the document without opening it in Word (and therefore updating it). Our document management system has viewers from Stellent, which I don’t think are sold separately. You could try Microsoft’s Word Viewer and see whether that provides the information: Download details: Word Viewer 2003.

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Nice idea…I tried the Word 2003 Viewer & was even able to scare up an old Word 97 Viewer, but no luck w/ either – date field remained intact.

Hans pointed out that these may be old converted Word Perfect docs, so they may explain it. I suppose we will have to rely on the property settings & use that date as the best reference.

Thanks, Gentlemen, for all your help.

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Hi Bruce,

You might try changing the DATE field to a PRINTDATE field. If the date the document was printed is the date you’re after AND it has been retained in the document metadata, you’re in luck.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Hi, Mac ~

In Word 2007, Insert > Quick Parts > Field > CreateDate (or SaveDate or PrintDate), yet the date comes out as today’s date or ‘XXX 0, 0000’, literally.

The metadata may not be there as Hans noted that WP documents may or may not store this info & Word may not see it because it has to convert the document from WP format to Word format, so likely will always see today as the create date.

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This would imply that the document has not yet been saved or printed. This is another indication that the file is not actually a Word document but is converted to one as you open it.

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