Date-and-time fields in Word 2016 are something you can easily code manually. Is doing so quicker than using commands on the Ribbon? You bet! Especially when you know the codes you want and can easily craft the field.
For example, to display the day of the week followed by the hour in 24-hour format, create the following DATE field:
To build a field manually, press Ctrl+F9. Word presents an empty field: { }
Between the brackets, you can manually type any field, if you know the field name. For the date field, the name is DATE. For the time field, the name is TIME. Use the DATE field if you plan to mix date-and-time values.
The field name is followed by one or more optional switches. The most common switch is \@, which is followed by a date/time picture string enclosed in double quotes. The characters you can use in the string are listed in the following table.
Word's Date-and-Time Field Codes
| Code | What It Stands For |
| am/pm | Suffix AM or PM after the current time |
| d | Day of the month |
| dd | Day of the month, two digits wide |
| ddd | Day of the week, three letters only |
| dddd | Day name |
| h | Hour, one digit wide, 12-hour format |
| H | Hour, one digit wide, 24-hour format |
| hh | Hour, two digits wide |
| HH | Hour, two digits wide |
| m | Minutes |
| mm | Minutes, two digits wide |
| M | Month number |
| MMM | Month name, three letters only |
| MMMM | Month, full name |
| s | Seconds |
| ss | Seconds, two digits wide |
| yy | Current year as two digits |
| yyyy | Current year as four digits |
{ DATE \@ "ddd HH" \* MERGEFORMAT }
The \* MERGEFORMAT text ensures that any formatting applied around the field is also applied to the field.
