Calculated Dates with WordBasic

You may wonder if there is a quick way to put a calculated date into a letter created in Word. For instance, you may want to send out mail-merged letters with a date that is 30 days after the date on which the letters were created.

Unfortunately, there is no native way to do this in Word. For instance, there is no field code you can use to insert a calculated date. If you are using Excel or Access as your data source for the mail merge, the simplest solution may be to just add a field in the data source that shows the calculated date. (It is very easy to do this in both Excel and Access.) The data source field can then be placed in the mail-merge document and everything is set.

If you want to stick with Word and cannot modify the data source (perhaps someone else supplies it), then you can use a macro to insert the future date. The following WordBasic macro will do the trick:

Sub MAIN
    Insert Date$(Today() + 30)
End Sub

This macro determines today's date, adds 30 days to it, formats it according to the default formatting set up in Word, and inserts it into the document. If you assign this macro to a shortcut key, you can quickly insert your future date whenever you want.