Word2010Filter: Auto Update Footer with Date, Time, and Filename

April 17, 2015 1:59 PM

I'm trying to do this for version control of documents that are edited by multiple users. Both electronic and hard copies are used, and we are losing track of hard copies which currently have no filename, time, or date. I need documents to automatically populate with this information when the user saves and closes the document. Not when they print, but when they save and close. Is this possible?

I've tried doing the macro thing but I'm not a developer and have decent computer skills, but I have zero experience with macros. From what I understand, sometimes fields will update when the user goes to print the file, but this has not been the case in my experience (filename field was updated, but time was not updated). Also, to complicate things, apparently Word makes some, but not all, fields which are able to be updated. No clue if this is relevant or not, but thought I'd throw it out there. Haaaalp!

Also: we are all using Word 2010. Please explain this to me like I'm 5. Thanks!

posted by onecircleaday to Technology (9 answers total)

Open your footer. Go to the Insert tab. From there, choose Quick Parts > Field -- it's near the bottom of the Quick Parts drop-down. The fields are in alpha order. You'll probably want FileName, LastSavedBy, and SaveDate at minimum (there are descriptions of what the fields do when you click on them). When you save, it won't update on your screen. But close the document and open it again and it will have changed.

You'll want to build that into your templates.
posted by clone boulevard at 2:53 PM on April 17, 2015

Response by poster: Ah! "LastSavedBy" - I didn't know that field was an option. I'll save those to the Normal.dotm template and hopefully that will fix it...

The issue I'm having is that the fields don't update when I re-open, edit, and re-save the doc a second time. The fields reflect only the first edit. We'll see - thanks!
posted by onecircleaday at 3:03 PM on April 17, 2015

Response by poster: OK. I inputted the fields and saved the doc, then clicked "Save As" and renamed the file to create a new version to test it out. The new version didn't update the new filename ("Filename2") in the footer, but the time did update. I"m not sure why the filename isn't updating. Also my preference would be to save the time upon closing the doc, but maybe that's being too picky!
posted by onecircleaday at 3:12 PM on April 17, 2015

You can manually make it update by right clicking on the field and choosing Update Field. Also if you've saved and still have the file open you can Print Preview and for whatever reason that works, too. But that's not the automation you were hoping for, I know.

There are a few macros suggestions out in the wild. Maybe one of those could work for you!
posted by clone boulevard at 4:14 PM on April 17, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. What I'm really looking for is a tutorial on how to do the macro for this. There doesn't seem to be an easier way for a novice end user to do this without macros. I guess I'll just have to keep digging.
posted by onecircleaday at 4:22 PM on April 17, 2015

Is this for an organizational project, or something more personal and informal? My org uses Sharepoint for this very reason (when documents are edited, only one person can have it "checked out" at a time, so there are no weird mix-ups between versions that get sent off in different directions that have to be combined by an unlucky editor at the end). I feel like there are free platforms that do this, too--Google Docs maybe? If so, your solution might be more with a document management program/system/website rather than with Word.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 4:25 PM on April 17, 2015

Response by poster: I'd LOVE it if we used SharePoint. I believe it's a pay-per-user thing, so we don't, but yeah... sharing files on a server is not the best way to accomplish group work, but that's how we do it, and it's all based on filename. We have to combine edits constantly, and Google Docs is not an option unfortunately. I work in government so I'm very limited. A doc management system would be amazing, but I'm not in a situation where that's even.... on the table. All good points, though!
posted by onecircleaday at 4:28 PM on April 17, 2015

Microsoft has released a ton of different free cloud-based offerings to compete with Google docs. I'm not sure exactly what's available right now, (office 365?) but you might look into it.
posted by rockindata at 5:08 PM on April 17, 2015

I work for an NGO where we have many similar limitations and issues with multiple editors of documents. I have a few self-signed macros (to avoid everyone having to approve the macros all the time) that we use in our templates, and one of them is an "auto update fields on close" macro that looks like this:

Sub AutoClose()
    ActiveDocument.Fields.Update
End Sub

If you wanted to update it on open, use "AutoOpen" instead of "AutoClose"

That should allow you to use the LastSaveBy, LastSaveTime, and FileName fields to show the info you want, and all the fields will update upon closing/opening the document.

Inserting such a preexisting/pre-written VBA macro isn't hard, it's just that your default Word install doesn't give you the "Developer" tab that you need. See these instructions for Excel (not sure why the Word version of these instructions are hard to find...)
posted by gemmy at 8:12 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]