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ITrain - International Association of Information Technology Trainers Y2K Readiness
Preparing Microsoft Applications
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Year 2000 Readiness: Microsoft Applications
by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Dave Murphy, DGL President & ITrain founder Microsoft has published a lot of information on it's website that will help users prepare for the Year 2000 (Y2K). Here are a few suggestions:

There are several simple steps you can take to avoid confusing date formats as the Year 2000 approaches. Even in those Microsoft Office programs not necessarily used to perform calculations, such as Word and PowerPoint, it is smart to use 4-digit years so that you and others who work in your documents can differentiate between dates. And it is easy to change how the date is read and displayed so that years are presented as four digits.

Change Your System Setting

In Windows 95 and Windows 98 you can set your default system date by going into the Regional Settings dialog in the Control Panel.

On the Date tab, select the Short Date Style and the Long Date Style. In both cases you should choose a form that includes the 4-digit year. In Windows 98, you can also determine how the software interprets a 2-digit representation of a year in this dialog. For more information, read Updating Your Date Settings for the Year 2000.

Simple Steps to help prepare for the Year 2000

In each program, by making a couple of changes to the date format you may clear up ambiguities about which century is intended.

Change the Default Date in Word

  1. On the Insert menu, choose the Date and Time command.
  2. Select a date format that uses a 4-digit year.
  3. Click the Default button to make this format the default for all your Word documents.

Change the Way Excel 97 Displays a Four-Digit Year

  1. Select the cells that contain the dates you want to change.
  2. On the Format menu, click Cells.
  3. Select the Date category, and then choose a format that most closely matches the format you want to use.
  4. Select the Custom category.
  5. Do one of the following:
    • If the format contains "yy", add two more y's.
    • If the format contains no y's, add "yyyy" to the format.

Change the Way Access 97 Displays a Four-Digit Year

You can display four digits for the year by changing the Format property for any Date/Time data type. To change the Format property:
  1. Open the table that contains the date you want to change.
  2. Switch to Design view. (For more information, see Access Help.)
  3. Select the field defined as a Date/Time data type.
  4. In the Format property, select a format that contains four y's ("yyyy").

Change the Default Date in PowerPoint

  1. To select a date format for the slide you are working on, on the Insert menu, select the Date and Time command.
  2. Select a date format that uses a 4-digit year. This will insert the date onto that one slide as text.

To add a date as a header or footer on every slide in a presentation:

  1. On the View menu, select the Header and Footer command.
  2. In the Header and Footer dialog, choose the date format you want.
  3. Check the Update Automatically box so that the date remains current.

Note In PowerPoint you need to set the date for each presentation.

Change the Date Timestamp in FrontPage 98

With FrontPage 98, you can change the date formatting for a timestamp from a 2-digit format to any of nineteen formats, including a 4-digit format. FrontPage 98 will display the date and time based on the Date Format and Display options you choose and the time on the machine where the Web resides.

To change the date format for a timestamp in FrontPage 98, follow these steps:

  1. In FrontPage Editor, on the Insert menu, click Date and Time.
  2. In the Date and Time Properties dialog box, click to select the date format you want.
  3. Click OK.

To change date and time formatting for a Save Results Bot, read the article FP98: Save Results Form Handler and Year 2000 Compliance in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

Are you and your computers prepared for the Year 2000? What have you done to get ready? Leave your comments on the message center

Microsoft Y2K Site
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updated September 22, 1999
http://dgl.com/itinfo/1999/it990922.html

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