Quickly Inserting the Date Your Way

Several other WordTips explain how you can understand and change the default dates used by Word. Some people prefer a simple way of inserting the date, in their preferred format, using Word's Building Block feature. To set up this method of date entry, follow these steps:

1. Position the insertion point on a blank line.
2. Display the Insert tab of the ribbon.
3. Click Date & Time in the Text group. Word displays the Date and Time dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Date and Time dialog box.

4. Choose the display format that is closest to what you want.
5. Make sure the Update Automatically check box is selected at the bottom of the dialog box.
6. Click on OK. The date, using the selected format, appears in your document.
7. Select the date field and press Shift+F9. This displays the actual DATE field coding.
8. Change the format within the quote marks to reflect your final format.
9. Press Shift+F9 to display the DATE field results instead of the field coding.
10. Select the date field again.
11. Press Alt+F3. Word displays the Create New Building Block dialog box. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Create New Building Block dialog box.

12. Type the word Date in the Name field.
13. Click on OK. Your DATE field, properly formatted, is now saved in a Building Block entry named Date.

To use the entry, type the word Date and then press the F3 key. The word Date is replaced with your DATE field, as you saved it in the Building Block entry.

Understand that the technique described in this tip utilizes a DATE field. That means that whenever the fields in your document are updated, the date will also be updated. If you don't want the newly added field to update in the future, you can lock it using the shortcut described in this tip:

https://tips.net/T5980

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10359) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Quickly Inserting the Date Your Way.