Change date field to static date (2003)

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Our Records department just asked me how to change the date field in Word documents to a static date reflecting the date the document was created. Apparently, some administrative staff inserted date fields instead of static dates on all their documents. Now, 5-10 years later, we need to be able to print those documents with the original creation date, not have it change to the current date.

Sure, we can open each one, delete the date field and type the creation date. But, we thousands of these documents in several folders.

As you all know, I am code illiterate. But, I was wondering if one of you clever souls knows how to write code that would go through a folder, find all the Word documents that use the date field, replace the date field with the original creation date and also write a comment to the document properties stating that the document was modified to replace the field with a static date (so the records auditor doesn’t look at the file properties and think we modified the document).

Or do you have another suggestion? Has anyone else had this issue and found a cool solution?

We are doing this to comply with Public Records regulations. Sigh.

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You could replace the DATE field with the CREATEDATE field:

Code:

Sub ReplaceDate()
  Dim rng As Range
  Dim fld As Field
  For Each rng In ActiveDocument.StoryRanges
	For Each fld In rng.Fields
	  If fld.Type = wdFieldDate Then
		fld.Code.Text = Replace(fld.Code.Text, "DATE", "CREATEDATE")
	  End If
	Next fld
	Do While Not rng.NextStoryRange Is Nothing
	  Set rng = rng.NextStoryRange
	  For Each fld In rng.Fields
		If fld.Type = wdFieldDate Then
		  fld.Code.Text = Replace(fld.Code.Text, "DATE", "CREATEDATE")
		End If
	  Next fld
	Loop
  Next rng
End Sub

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Thank you, Hans. Where would I put this code? In a new Word doc and make it a macro?

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If you copy it into a module in Normal.dot, you can run it in any document.

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