Date Format Frustration!

[leanne.drivas]

I am trying to do a mail merge based on a collection letter. The address fields work fine, however we need to include an expiration date. We format the database with mm/dd/year expire dates, but when merging the letter, writer switched the format to number format (12345) which will absolutely not work for our letters. We have tried formatting the date in our database (calc spreadsheet) several different ways and it makes no difference how we format the source, Writer re-formats it.

Is there any way to preserve the normal date format, or else set up Writer to format it as a date and not a number???

[Lupp]

The format for printing values from the database is chosen immediately before inserting the field.
Did you choose ‘Format’ > ‘From database’ in the dialogue before you inserted the date field?
You also may select a format or define one under ‘User-defined’ > ‘Additional formats’.
A date is a numeric value and the ‘Standard’ format for numeric fields is not a date format.

[JensS]

When you create a database-file from the your spreadsheet - 1. row in the spreadsheet is used as field-name and 2. row as field-type. After registration of this odb-file, never touch it again - all addition and deletion should be done in the spreadsheet and will immediately be reflected in the database.
If you are sure that all dates in the ‘expiration date’ - column are dates and that does not solve your problem - you can change all the dates to text by entering a ’ in front of the date.(use search and replace)