Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Inserting the Date Your Document Was Last Printed.

Inserting the Date Your Document Was Last Printed

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated October 8, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

One of the pieces of information that Word maintains about documents is when they were last printed. Every time you print your document, this piece of information is updated. There may be times when you want to display this "last printed" date in your document. To do this, follow these steps:

Position the insertion point where you want the date to appear.
Choose Field from the Insert menu. Word displays the Field dialog box.
Choose Date and Time from the Categories list. Word updates the choices in the Field Names list. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Field dialog box.

Select PrintDate from the field list at the right side of the dialog box.
Click on Options or Field Codes to select a date format, if desired.
Click on OK to insert the field.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1841) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Inserting the Date Your Document Was Last Printed.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen...

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