How do I create an automatically updating date for a template in Microsoft Word 2007?

Question

I am a freshman in college and I am trying to make an easy way for me to take notes on my computer during class. I created a template that has a title (ex. Philosophy Notes), and the date centered at the top, with a bullet aligned to the left directly under that. I want to leave this template on my desktop to it is easy to access and ready to go for class, so I just open the template and start typing. The only thing that isn't perfect is the date. I'm hoping there is a way to make the date show up correctly each time I open up the template. This would be extremely helpful.

Bonus! If this document could automatically be saved as something different each day (ex. Philosophy 8-25) automatically working with the date, it would make my life even easier. Thanks for your help, whatever you provide is greatly appreciated.

CK

Answer 1

Yes, you can add an updating date field to your template. Just follow these steps:



1. Place your cursor where you want the date

2. Click the Insert tab

3. In the Text group, click "Date & Time." The Date and Time dialog box opens.

4. Select the date format you want.

5. Click OK



A date field with today's date is inserted. Just highlight the date to format the text. You can resize the font, underline, bold, whatever you want.



Now, save as a dotx template file. When you want to start a new page of notes, double-click the template icon and a fresh page will open all ready for you to use, with the correct date displayed.



I would suggest saving your new file as soon as you create it, then save periodically as you are typing your notes.



(By the way, if the date isn't correct when you open the file, you can always highlight and click Update. Just make sure you don't do it on a previous days file, or it will put today's date in it.)



I hope this helps! I'm not a VB programmer, so I don't know if there is a way to automatically save a file as soon as you create it with the properly formatted file name/date.

Answer 2

Hello Craig,



This type of log file can be simply made by using notepad. Open Notepad and on the first line type .LOG (That is DOT LOG) then press Enter then save and close the file.



Each time you open this file a current date and time will be the first thing that is changed each time it is opened on the new line. Be sure to press enter after you log entry is completed, so the next time it is opened, the date/time will be on a line of it's own.



Here is a snippit of my log file:

.LOG



11:32 PM 8/10/2008

Requests:

Jeanne Pruett -- Satin Sheets



11:48 AM 9/20/2008

barry

Apples and Oranges Sid Barrett Pink Floyd



2:55 AM 9/21/2008

Dr. Rob





Hope this helps

d.tcom

Answer 3

You can't fix this for an existing document, but here's how to prevent it from happening in future documents: The date was inserted with a DATE field, which auto-updates when you open the document. There are two ways to prevent this from happening: 1. Convert the date field to straight text. 2. Disallow updating on the date field. Here's how I would do these in Word XP (2002). If you want the date to always be the original date, right after you create a document, click in the Date field and press CTRL-SHIFT-F9. This changes the field to regular text. If you want the date to still be changeable, but only when you want it to change, do the above but click CTRL-F11 instead. This locks it. You can change it whenever you want to with F9, or right-click/Update Field. You can even unlock the field with CTRL-SHIFT-F11. Hope that helps.