Date Question

[qzd6sn]

On my form is a date, the format should be mm-dd-yy. This is not my requirement but the requirement of the customer. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get this to show up on the form so the user knows what format they are to be entering the date so that when it enters the date into the table it will be in that format and it will be left justified in the cell?

Thanks,

Lisa B.

 

[Rats]

Hi Lisa
Have you tried setting up an input mask for the date field. Go into the table design view for the required table, select the date field and use the Input Mask wizard to set it up.

 

[raskew]

Hi Lisa -

It may also be helpful if you see how dates/times are stored internally by Access. Take a look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q130514/

HTH - Bob

 

[Dennisk]

Dont confuse input masks and display formats. You could for instance be requirede to enter a date as dd/mm/yy but display it as dd/mm/yyyy.

You can specify whatever display format you require using the format property of the text control on the form or table.

 

[Mile-O]

If you were to use the calendar control, it wouldn't matter how you input dates. There should be examples in the Sample Databases folder of a pop up calendar. No doubt near the bottom of that area.

 

[Bat17]

it will be in that format and it will be left justified in the cell?

if it is a date then it is a number and it will right justify by default.
You can choose how to display the data in a form or report where you can then select left justified. You can use the Format() function to turn a date from a number to a text field, but you should do this for display or export not for storage or you will get problems working with your data.

Peter

 

[qzd6sn]

Still confused

Thanks everyone for your response, but I am still having issues. I have tried to setup the input wizard to no avail. Everytime I think I have it right and I change one of my test records, I can't save the darn table because it says I have the date in the wrong format. I think I'm going to concentrate more on the form and having the date entered on the form correctly so that it will be in the table right instead. Wish me luck, I'll post again if I have more issues.

Thanks,

Lisa B.

 

[Bat17]

Is the data you are working with currently being saved as date or text?

What do you want it to be?

 

[qzd6sn]

The date I am storing is set up as text not date. I couldn't get much out of the date format so I changed it to text.

 

[rborob]

Me.textbox = Format(Date, "mm dd yyyy")

 

[Bat17]

The way the date is stored should not affect your customer. You can format a date to look how you want in display, does the customer want it in this particular for mat for export? that can be achived using the Format() function in a query. For display I would recomend using some thing like DD mmm YY or MMM DD YY so that you get the month spelt out. You still do your data entry as 10/4/07 but it will soon be obvious if it is the wrong way around when the month shows up in text.

HTH

Peter