How do I get the date formats to work properly in a mail merge?

[FawnDoo]

I recently upgraded from Office 2000 to Office XP. When I carry out
mailmerges that have dates in them, the dates are in the British date format
in the data source (Excel) - ie, 17/03/2005. When I carry out the mailmerge
using Word's wizard, it runs ok but displays the dates in the American format
- ie, 03/17/2005...I have checked the formatting in the Excel sheet, tried
anything I can think of in Word, and my regional settings are set to British
date format, just in case it was that. Anyone got any ideas why it is doing
this, it never did it in Office 2000.

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

What language version is your Office XP? Where did you purchase it?

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, FawnDoo asked:

| I recently upgraded from Office 2000 to Office XP. When I carry out
| mailmerges that have dates in them, the dates are in the British date
| format in the data source (Excel) - ie, 17/03/2005. When I carry out
| the mailmerge using Word's wizard, it runs ok but displays the dates
| in the American format - ie, 03/17/2005...I have checked the
| formatting in the Excel sheet, tried anything I can think of in Word,
| and my regional settings are set to British date format, just in case
| it was that. Anyone got any ideas why it is doing this, it never did
| it in Office 2000.

 

[Gary Smith]

I don't know what's causing this is your regional settings are correct,
but you can get around it by specifiying the desired format in your Word
document. Display the field codes and where you have something like
{MERGEFIELD MyDate}, change it to read {MERGEFILED MyDate\@DD/MM/YYYY}.