How can I turn off automatic date update on opening documents

Anonymous
2011-05-10T12:06:19+00:00

Original Title: Word 2010

How can I turn off automatic date update on opening documents.  I need to retain the dates letters were written.  Step by step if possible!

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Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
2011-05-10T12:26:24+00:00

The instructions are the same for letters and for templates, but if you are basing your letters on a template that includes a DATE field, then make the change in the template and you'll never have to do it in a letter again.

The reason that the date updates is that it is a DATE field, which always provides the current system date. What you want is a different field, the CREATEDATE field, which is updated once, when you create the document, and then stays the same forever after. You can read more about these and other fields at http://wordfaqs.mvps.org/datefields.htm.

To change your DATE field to a CREATEDATE field, press Alt+F9 to display the field code. Then just type CREATE before DATE, press Alt+F9 to toggle back, and press F9 to update.

If you put a CREATEDATE field in a document template, the template itself will always display the date it was created, but when you create a new document based on the template, the document will display the date IT was created. The nice thing about this is that the date that the document was created is stored within it at creation, so you can change a DATE field to CREATEDATE at any time to recover that original date even if the DATE field has updated to the current date.

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Charles Kenyon 170.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2012-08-13T19:28:21+00:00

How about this? Select date, right click, check "Preserve date". But that would be too simple, and there would be less need for de-obfuscators.

And how, exactly, does this help someone who has a document, created on a different day with a DATE field? Are you suggesting a change to Word rather than explaining to someone who has a problem how to fix it?

Preserve date might be less cryptic in this instance than "Unlink field," but it does not give you the original date. Assume a document written with a DATE field on October 23, 2009, saved as a new document on July 11, 2010, and today is August 13, 2012. What date is to be preserved? How do you tell the computer?

The best method, as I believe Suzanne mentioned is to have a template using the CreateDate field to start with. The next best solution is to manually change the field to a CreateDate field or unlink the field when the document is created so that it is plain text. Going backwards is always going to be a bit iffy, whether done manually or by some right-click menu choice.

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  1. Charles Kenyon 170.9K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2014-05-09T18:18:13+00:00

    I have over 10,000 word documents that were created with autodate and need to print over 1,000 of them for a court case. It is impossible for me to look at the document properties for every document and risk falsifying the evidence by inserting the original date into the document so that it prints correctly. None of the answers would appear to help me. I just want to switch off autodate while I print the 1,000 copies. Any ideas please. Michael

    What court case, what lawyer, is accepting printed versions of electronic evidence? I certainly would not. You are altering the evidence simply by putting it in a different form. I would want the original electronic version. I would want to have it available in court and would want to examine the actual document structure. It is a lot of work to do, but an examination of the electronic file can show  a lot of information that is not evident in a printed version.

    You cannot "switch off" autodate. It is in the document. You can change the date field to a createdate field. That is the best approximation of the date of creation there is. You need to do this with copies or you will be altering evidence. This could be done with a macro.

    In my office, documents are created using the createdate field. In addition, documents that leave the office in paper form or come to the office in paper form are saved in pdf format.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-05-09T15:08:58+00:00

    I have over 10,000 word documents that were created with autodate and need to print over 1,000 of them for a court case. It is impossible for me to look at the document properties for every document and risk falsifying the evidence by inserting the original date into the document so that it prints correctly. None of the answers would appear to help me. I just want to switch off autodate while I print the 1,000 copies. Any ideas please. Michael

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  3. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.2K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2011-05-11T12:55:55+00:00

    Although that is certainly one way to insert the field from scratch, if the document already contains a date field, it is much simpler to edit it as described.

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