Changing date format in mail merge

When performing a mail merge in Microsoft Word, you may encounter issues with date formats. By default, Word uses the regional date format settings of your computer, which can lead to inconsistencies in the date format across different regions or cultures.

To change the date format in a mail merge, you can use the Format function in combination with the Date function. Here are a few examples:

Example 1: Changing the date format to MM/DD/YYYY

Suppose you have a field named DateOfBirth in your data source, and you want to format it as MM/DD/YYYY. You can use the following code:

=Format(Date([DateOfBirth]), "mm/dd/yyyy")

Example 2: Changing the date format to YYYY-MM-DD

If you want to format the date as YYYY-MM-DD, you can use the following code:

=Format(Date([DateOfBirth]), "yyyy-mm-dd")

Example 3: Changing the date format to DD MMM YYYY

For a more human-readable format, you can use the following code:

=Format(Date([DateOfBirth]), "dd mmm yyyy")

To apply these formats, follow these steps:

  1. Open your Word document and go to the "Mailings" tab in the ribbon.
  2. Click on "Select Recipients" and then "Use an Existing List" to select your data source.
  3. Click on "Finish & Merge" to merge the data with your document.
  4. In the "Merge" dialog box, click on the "Insert Merge Field" button and select the field you want to format (e.g., DateOfBirth).
  5. Right-click on the field and select "Toggle Field Codes" to toggle the field code on.
  6. In the field code, replace the default date format with the desired format using the Format function (e.g., =Format(Date([DateOfBirth]), "mm/dd/yyyy")).
  7. Click "OK" to close the "Toggle Field Codes" dialog box.
  8. Repeat steps 4-7 for each field you want to format.
  9. Click "Finish & Merge" to merge the data with your document again.

The formatted dates should now appear in your document according to the specified format.