Prevent automatic insertion of current date in Word

This is in reference to a query posted by one of the blog reader on “how to prevent the date field getting automatically updated with the current date in a Word document. We had already seen the steps required to insert current date or modify date format for the date in Word 2016, 2013 & 2010. Similarly you can stop Word from the changing the date to the system date by following the below simple steps

Step 1: Open the document with the date field.

Step 2: Select the date field then click the Insert menu and navigate to Text section.

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Step 3: Click the Date & Time option available under Text section.

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Step 4: In the Date and Time window, un mark the check box with label as Update automatically then click OK button to confirm and save the changes.

By this way Word users can stop automatic update of date field to the current date.


Comments

9 responses to “Prevent automatic insertion of current date in Word”

  1. […] How to prevent automatic insertion of current date in Word 2010 […]

  2. […] How to prevent automatic insertion of current date in Word 2010 […]

  3. Doris Ganser Avatar
    Doris Ganser

    I am just a user, so my terminology may be incorrect. And I could not find the place where to ask a new question here, hence my question under “Comment”. Sorry if that’s an incorrect procedure.

    All the instructions about retaining the preceding date that I have seen concerned individual documents. I guess that’s time consuming but more or less feasible.

    But whenever my computer geek installs new memory or updates my machine in other ways , my dates for ALL the transferred documents (hundreds), many dates carefully preserved for legal reasons, change. He is about to install more memory on my machine, and I am afraid that another fiasco will result. I have started manually placing dates at the top of many documents but it is time consuming to do so — I cannot search for a specific date because I don’t know the date of many versions of the same document.

    It has already caused me enormous difficulty because Word often also insists on changing file names that I have carefully selected by truncating them and adding numbers at the end [also other tyrannical measures like sometimes hiding documents and placing them in some obscure location ignoring my personally devised file structure but that’s another story! During one update all my old photos disappeared.)

    Is there a way out or should I just prevent updates of my computer?

    Thanks, dg

  4. This doesn’t work for me. The box was never checked to automatically update the date but it did anyway. Why Word thinks its okay to change the dates on my documents without my permission I don’t know. I have a letter to Immigration from 2019, I need to know the date I wrote it, and everytime I open it, it shows todays date, it drives me crazy. The fix above doesn’t work because the box was never checked to begin with. I hate word, huge waste of time, very frustrating!

    1. Try checking the file creation or modified time. That might give information about the date at which the document was initially created.

      1. This doesn’t work. It’s unchecked and Word updates to today’s date anyway.

        1. I have the same problem. Word wants to update dates and keeps inserting its own format. I don’t want it to play with my dates at all. The box for “update Automatically” isd not checked and has never been checked, but Word persists in changing my dates anyway. How do I stop it?

    2. BRIAN SHEFFIELD Avatar
      BRIAN SHEFFIELD

      i had a problem with this, and right clicked on the attachment in an email before opening it, hit preview, and I was able to see the real date

  5. abhishek dixit Avatar
    abhishek dixit

    when I insert date and time through the insert tab word doesn’t update my date and time but when I put it with keyboard short then my date and time is automatically update that was not good. can you suggest getting rid of it?

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