Formatting
Years In Access
Ask how your end users of Access
databases like to enter their dates.
Some users are firmly entrenched in
the habit of typing dashes in their dates, while others prefer slashes; still
others just want to type six digits and let the program fill in the dash or the
slash automatically. Fortunately, you can accommodate almost any style of data
entry by tweaking the Input Mask associated with your Date/Time field.
As you probably know, you can open
your table in Design View, and click on the Date/Time field for which you want
to customize the input mask. In the bottom half of the screen, click the General
tab and then click the Build button (the gray button displaying an ellipsis) to
launch the Input Mask Wizard. From there, you can view and experiment with the
built-in masks and design your own.
In some cases, you'll want to force
Access to display four-digit years, even if the input mask allows the user to
enter only two digits for the year (e.g., to avoid ambiguity about a date). In
Access 2000, you can make that change globally by going to Tools | Options and
clicking the General tab. In the Use Four-Digit Year Formatting section,
activate the check box for the option labeled All Databases, and click OK.
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