Insert the date or time in a header or footer

If you want the exact date or time a form was printed to be reflected in the printed form, you can use AutoText codes in the Insert Header and Insert Footer dialog boxes to accomplish this task.

You can also design your form template so that dates entered into the form by users will print automatically in the header or footer. For example, in an expense report form template, you might want start and end dates for the expense period to print in the form's footer.

What do you want to do?

Insert the current date in the header or footer

Insert the current time in the header or footer

Insert dates from the form in the header or footer

Insert the current date in the header or footer

Dates are tied to specific regional settings for the user's operation system. Thus, dates may print differently for different users, depending on the user's date settings.

1. On the View menu, click Header and Footer.

2. Click the Print Settings tab.

3. Under Headers and Footers, click Header or Footer.

4. In the Insert AutoText box, do one of the following:

   • To print the short version of today's date in the header or footer, click Short Date.

     With this setting selected, the short date format would print as, for example, 09/22/05 for English (United States), although the user can customize the display format.

   • To print the long version of today's date in the header or footer, click Long Date.

     With this setting selected, the long date format would print as, for example, Thursday, September 22, 2005 for English (United States), although the user can customize the display format.

5. To test how your changes will look on the printed form, click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar.

   Note: Headers and footers appear only in the Print Preview window and in the printed form, and will not appear in the regular Preview window.

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Insert the current time in the header or footer

Times are tied to specific regional settings for the user's operation system. Thus, dates may print differently for different users, depending on the user's time settings.

1. On the View menu, click Header and Footer.

2. Click the Print Settings tab.

3. Under Headers and Footers, click Header or Footer.

4. In the Insert AutoText box, do one of the following:

   • To print the time in regional format, click Time (Regional Format).

     With this setting selected, the time would print as, for example, 4:01:49 PM, although the user can customize the display format.

   • To print the time in 24-hour format, click 24-hour Time.

     With this setting selected, the time would print as, for example, 16:01:49 PM.

5. To test how your changes will look on the printed form, click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar.

   Note: Headers and footers appear only in the Print Preview window and in the printed form, and will not appear in the regular Preview window.

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Insert dates from the form in the header or footer

Use this technique to make user-specified dates print in the header or footer. For example, in an expense report form template, you might use date pickers to collect start and end dates for a given expense report. To make those dates appear in the printed form, you can insert the fields to which the controls are bound into the header or footer.

1. On the View menu, click Header and Footer.

2. Click the Print Settings tab.

3. Under Headers and Footers, click Header or Footer.

4. In the Insert AutoText box, click Field.

5. In the Select a Field or Group dialog box, select the field containing the date or time you want to appear in the header or footer.

6. In the Date Format box, do one of the following:

   • To display the XML value for the date in the header or footer, leave None (display XML value) selected.

   • To customize the display format for the date, select Display the date like this.

     Note: If a display style has an asterisk next to it, it means that the date will display according to the date settings specified for the form user's operating system. If you want to override the operating system setting, use a display style without an asterisk. Note that changing how a date is displayed affects only the displayed value, not the value that is saved in the data source.

7. To test your changes, click Preview on the Standard toolbar, or press CTRL+SHIFT+B.

8. Enter the date in the control that is bound to the field you chose in step 5.

9. To test how your changes will look on the printed form, click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar.

   Note: Headers and footers appear only in the Print Preview window and in the printed form, and will not appear in the regular Preview window.

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