How can I stop the dates of my previous letters in a folder being changed to the current date each time I open the folder? This is so inconvenient when you want to refer to a past letter only to find the date has been changed to today's date.

Urgent assistance if anyone knows as I have a legal folder where I must know when letters were written and am not going to open it until I can be sure the dates will stay the same!

Copied from MS-Word Help...

"Lock or unlock a field
Do one of the following:

To lock a field and prevent changes to the current field results, click the field, and then press CTRL+F11.
To unlock a field and allow updates, click the field, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+F11."

I have Word2002, and I hope this has not changed between editions...

Being a bit unfamiliar as yet with Word 2000 I am not sure I understand what I have to do. Could you please give me a click by click pointer? Many thanks
Jo

I have not used fields for many years, so had to do some research

Probably the first problem is to actually identify which part of your document is actually a field, as opposed to normal text entries. To do this, click on 'Edit/Find' (shortcut Ctrl+F), and then GoTo. In the left hand box, called 'Go to what', scroll to 'Field'.

When you locate the right spot, the field should be highlighted... make sure your cursor is in the field, then just press Control F11. To unlock it, press Ctrl/Shift F11.

The help screens in Word are very helpful- if I have not explained it properly, just click Help, and type in 'Fields'.

If I insert the date using Insert Date and Time and then right click the result, I can see Toggle Fields on the menu so I presume this is the field. If I then press Ctrl/Shift/F11 having highlighted the date and having the cursor within the field, this will then unlock the field and the date will remain the same in the document?

Trouble is that on opening the folder of letters, all the dates have become today's date, so will they revert to the correct date using the above procedure? Now that I have unchecked the Automatic Update box, this problem will not occur again?

Thanks for all your help

I find it easiest to just type the date in. Then it never changes.

If you prefer to use the 'Insert date and time' command, unticking the 'Update automatically' box seems to stop the date and time updating each time the document is opened. It needs unticking before you enter the date and time for the first time though. Unticking it later doesn't stop the date/time automatically updating. If you want to modify the document so that won't update, you'll need to delete the displayed date and time and re-insert it with the box unticked.

If you don't want to do that, open the document, go to the File Menu and click on 'Properties'. Under the 'Statistics' tab you can see what date and time the file was created. The date and time written there never changes*.

Edit:* Or just right-click on the .doc file and select 'Properties'. Look under the 'General' tab for the same thing.

Yesterday, having unticked the box, I created a document using Insert Date which of course was 15th July. On opening it this morning, it is 16th July so maybe the box ticking is not working?

Sorry, meant unticking of course....

I tested the date/time function (box ticked and unticked) by inserting the time given in hours minutes and seconds. When the date/time is inserted into a new document with the box unticked, the time remains unchanged each time the document is opened. I have to say that I haven't checked that the date doesn't update from day to day though. I'll create a new document now (with the update box unticked) and see how the date is tomorrow. I'd think that since the time doesn't change when the box is unticked the date should also stay the same. I'll let you know.

Two new documents created yesterday:

The one created with the update box ticked displays today's date. The one created with the box unticked displays yesterday's date. Without being able to reproduce the problem, I can't suggest a reason why this isn't working for you.

Perhaps just type the date in?

If you have trouble with AutoText adding the date (or part of it) again when the date has been typed manually:

1. Press the spacebar before pressing 'Enter' (that's the same as ignoring the suggestion tip and continuing typing).

2. Untick the box in the AutoText dialogue box (Insert Menu) that says: 'Show AutoComplete for AutoText and date'.