WD97: Year 2000 Date Parsing Improvements in SR-2

Microsoft Office 97 Service Release 2 (SR-2) improves the way Word handles dates. Specifically, SR-2 makes it easier to do the following in Word:

• Work with dates that use single digits (for example 1/1/0)
• Sort dates that use 00 for the year
• Use dates in a document saved in RTF format

Working with Dates That Use Single Digits

If you set the Regional Settings in Control Panel to a non-US date format, such as Year/Month/Day, Microsoft Word 97 SR-2 will now correctly parse single digit years around the year 2000.

Sorting Dates That Use 00 for the Year

If you set the Regional Settings in Control Panel to a non-US date format, such as Year/Month/Day, Microsoft Word 97 SR-2 will now correctly parse dates that have a zero for the month or day. Pre-SR-2 versions of Microsoft Word would give erroneous results in this situation.

Using Dates in a Document Saved in RTF Format

If you set the Regional Settings in Control Panel to a short date format, such as mm/dd/yy, and then save a document containing a 2-digit date value, such as "11/15/01," as Rich text Format (RTF), Microsoft Word 97 SR-2 will write out custom date properties as 4 digits (instead of two) in the RTF file. Pre-SR-2 versions of Microsoft Word would write custom date properties out in RTF as "11/15/01." SR-2 correctly writes it out as "11/15/2001."

When Is Date Parsing Used?

Microsoft Word parses dates whenever it performs operations on dates. Examples include:

• Sorting dates in a table.
  
  
• Applying a date formatting picture switch to merge fields, quote fields, or input to a form field.
  
  
• Linking bookmarked text to a date type custom property.
  
  
• String to date operations in WordBasic.

For more information about the year 2000, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: