# How do I do this in MS Word?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 31, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712 "2011-01-31T22:57:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712/1 "2011-01-31T22:57:06Z")

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My work team creates a lot of letters that follow the same basic format, so I’ve created a handful of templates in MS Word for them to use. When they create a letter, they’re supposed to save a copy of it to a file on our network.

I don’t want my team to have to type in the current date each time; I want the template to automatically use the current date. However, once the letter is saved, I don’t want the date to update each time it’s accessed.

So for example, if the person opens the template today and creates a letter, I want the date to automatically be Jan. 31, 2011. They’ll save that letter to our network and when I open it tomorrow I want it to still say Jan 31, not Feb 1.

If I insert a Date field in the template with “Update automatically” unchecked, it just fills in the current date as text which won’t update tomorrow. But if I check “Update automatically” it gets saved that way in the final document, and it will always show the current date when the doc is viewed.

Basically I want the date to update automatically in the template, but not in the saved document. Is there a way to do that?

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**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712/2 "2011-02-01T03:05:29Z")

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There is a CREATEDATE field that does what you want.

If you need to keep using the the DATE field, you can convert the field result to text (this is called “unlinking” a field) with a macro. The following is the Document “New” event in the template document. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about let me know and I’ll be happy to elaborate.

Private Sub Document\_New()  
Selection.WholeStory  
Selection.Fields.Update  
Selection.Fields.Unlink  
End Sub

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**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712/3 "2011-02-01T14:48:02Z")

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I should clarify that what I’m doing is a document merge - when the user creates a document from the template, they are prompted to enter a custer ID number which identifies the record and populates several fields in the letter. The they do the merge and save the document.

I’ve tried using CREATEDATE but that just passes the template create date to the letter; it doesn’t use today’s date.

Unlinking the DATE field might be the ticket. I’m not sure how to write a macro that way (like, where to go to enter that code) but I’ll play around with it a bit. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712/4 "2011-02-01T14:56:42Z")

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Okay, I inserted that macro and the only problem is that it’s unlinking _all_ my fields. Can you tell me how to unlink just DATE?

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**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-do-this-in-ms-word/569712/5 "2011-02-01T15:27:37Z")

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Aha, I found finally found some code while Googling that is doing what I need:

Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToField, Name:=“Date”  
Selection.Fields.Unlink

Thanks **K364**!