WD2000: How to Create Ordinal (Legal) Dates in Form Fields

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This article was previously published under Q212689

SUMMARY

This article provides a method you can use to automatically display dates in arabic ordinal form (sometimes referred to as legal form) using Word form fields.

The following are examples of dates in ordinal form (ordinal numbers indicate the order in an ordered sequence):

   23rd day of February, 1999

   March 21st, 1999

   Tuesday the 15th, 1999

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MORE INFORMATION

Microsoft provides programming examples for illustration only, without warranty either expressed or implied. This includes, but is not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This article assumes that you are familiar with the programming language that is being demonstrated and with the tools that are used to create and to debug procedures. Microsoft support engineers can help explain the functionality of a particular procedure, but they will not modify these examples to provide added functionality or construct procedures to meet your specific requirements. The following macro retrieves the valid date result typed into a form field, extracts the day from the date, and determines the ordinal based upon that day. The macro finishes by returning the new Date formatting to the form field using the Visual Basic for Applications Format function.

Sub GetOrdinalDates()
   Dim fDate As FormField
   ' If no documents are open or if no form fields
   ' exist in the active document, or for other
   ' errors, exit this routine.
   On Error GoTo errhandler
   ' Replace the word Date with the name of your
   ' form field with your formfield bookmark name.
   Set fDate = ActiveDocument.FormFields("Date")
   ' Is the result of the form field a valid date?
   If Not IsDate(fDate.Result) Then Exit Sub
   ' Determine date format.
   Select Case Day(fDate.Result)
      Case 1, 21, 31
         daysuffix$ = Day(fDate.Result) & "st"
      Case 2, 22
         daysuffix$ = Day(fDate.Result) & "nd"
      Case 3, 23
         daysuffix$ = Day(fDate.Result) & "rd"
      Case Else
         daysuffix$ = Day(fDate.Result) & "th"
   End Select
   ' Use ONE of the following formats.
   ' Remove the remark(apostrophe) from the
   ' command lines that produce the desired format.
   ' -----------------------------------------------
   ' - Format example: 24th day of February, 1999
'   fDate.Result = daysuffix$ & " day of " _
'      & Format$(fDate.Result, "mmmm, yyyy")

    ' - Format example: February 24th, 1999
'   fDate.Result = Format$(fDate.Result, "mmmm") & " " & _
'       daysuffix$ & Format$(fDate.Result, ", yyyy")

    ' - Format example: Tuesday the 24th, 1999
'   fDate.Result = Format$(fDate.Result, "dddd") & " the " & _
'      daysuffix$ & Format$(fDate.Result, ", yyyy")
errhandler:
End Sub

For more information about how to use the sample code in this article, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

212536 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/212536/EN-US/ ) OFF2000: How to Run Sample Code from Knowledge Base Articles

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Create the Form

NOTE: There must be two form fields in the form for this example to work.

On the View menu, point to Toolbars, and then click Forms.
On the Forms toolbar, select Text Form Field and then click Options.
From the Type list, select Text.
Under Field Settings, replace Text1 with the word Date.
In the Exit list box, under "Run Macro On", select the "GetOrdinalDates" macro.
Click OK.
Repeat step 2 to insert a second form field.
On the Tools menu, click Protect Document.
Select the Forms option and then click OK. Word moves the insertion point to the first form field.
In the form field you have designated to be the date, type the numeric date value. For example, type 12/10/99.
Press TAB to move to the next form field.