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OtakiriLad

Sentence date format

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I notice the date format resulting from <D> in sentences is delivered as (for example) 'on 19 October 2011' or 'in October 2011' where there is no day. I would prefer the UK/Australian format of 'on the 19th of October, 2011'. Where the day is missing I am happy with the status quo.

 

Is this possible and if so how?

 

Cheers

Dave

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The date display format options are on the Preferences / Program Options / General tab / Date format selection.

 

For report date formats available, look at the date format options on the report Options / Date tab.

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Hi Dave,

 

As Jim points out, the two places he mentioned are where you can find what options TMG has for displaying dates on the screen, and for the output of dates in reports. Unfortunately none of those available options provide the day number as an ordinal number (e.g. 19th). All use a cardinal number (e.g. 19) as the day number.

 

[While some of us users may argue about whether ordinal numbers with dates is "proper grammar" for a publication even in the UK/Australia, that is beside the point. If that is the output you want, then you need to know how to get it.]

 

If you want your date with an ordinal number in your narrative sentences, then in TMG you have two options (that I can think of):

  • Enter 'the 19th of October, 2011' using the ordinal number as the date in the tag. However, TMG will record that as an irregular date, and this will disable automatic date/age calculations (such as the TMG age variables) for this tag's date. But you can still use the [D] variable in your narrative sentence template. TMG may copy that irregular date into the Sort Date. You will want to ensure the Sort Date has a regular (cardinal) date to ensure the tag sorts in its appropriate chronological order.
     
    Notice that if you entered a regular date (such as 'October, 2011') then [D] will still output what you enter, and in this case the date/age calculations will still work. If you don't use the TMG automatic date/age calculations or variables, this is probably the simplest solution.
     
     
  • Enter '19 October 2011' using the cardinal number as the date in the tag. But for those cases where you have the day number, don't use the [D] variable for the narrative sentence. Enter the date with the ordinal number as text, either in the sentence itself or in the memo, and use that for the narrative. You could even store different sentence templates, with and without the [D] variable, as roles and choose the role that outputs the date as desired.

You can get what you want, but it takes a bit of effort.

 

Hope this gives you ideas,

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