How can I change the date format in MS Word 2016 to show only hours and minutes when mailmerging with an Excel file?

Question

I'm trying to mail merge a MS Word letter with a MS Excel file which contains dates and times as well as other fields. I'm trying to put together for calling people to interviews at different times. Even though I have set the time format to show hours and minutes, e.g. 11.30, when I mail merge it the time also shows up the seconds, e.g. 11:30:00. I would prefer if the seconds did not appear.

Answer 1

The way I do all my formatting is adding a column on the spreadsheet with data (typically monetary values with thousand separators, and dates/date-times) using =text("<format template>", A2), and then using that column in the mail merge instead of the column with the original data.

Answer 2

You can use formatting in the merge fields. You have to use

{MERGEFIELD Your Date \@ "hh:mm"}

You can find a detailed thread in the following page: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-word/date-format-problem-in-mail-merge-word-2010/91e86ec7-1176-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5?auth=1

Answer 3

I am trying to save a template that has a mail merge built in. This merge is linked to a spreadsheet that has dates in it. The date fields are formatted as dates (d, ddd-mmm-yyyy)

I have found that if I save a word TEMPLATE (filename.dotx) the template file retains the formatting as set in the 'toggle field codes' option.

However - when my users open that template which in turn opens a new 'Document1.doc' - the field codes setting is lost. The only way that I can retain the setting is to save my original as a word document (filename.DOCX) and hope that my users don't save over the top of it.