I have some MS Word files that I would like to change the File Creation date. I have used the File Commands Set Attributes to do this and it looks OK. However when I open the document and look at the File Properties General Tab the creation date has changed BUT if I look at the Statistics Tab the date remains as the original creation date.
My first thought is that this is a different date held within the Word document itself and maybe cannot be changed - but I hope someone might be able to offer a solution.
I think you're right, the Date Created field seems to be stored inside the document and isn't related to the file's timestamps. I'm not sure how to change it, but not an expert on Word, either.
Hi Leo & trickyrla
You are correct that the file dates WITHIN a word document are distinct from the Windows DOS/NTFS system file dates. The system file dates can be changed with DOpus; the Document property dates cannot.
The simplest tool to change Word (and all Office) "Document Origin data" is Attribute Magic Pro - which works on MS Word DOC formats from Office 97 thru Office 2007, as well as DOCX in Office 2007. attributemagic.com/ >pretty inexpensive at US$29.71
Note, that earlier DOC versions (Office 4, Word v2, 6) are different(!) and cannot be edited by Attribute Magic. For them the only solution is the kluge that involves changing the system date BEFORE you open the document (since opening it will change the internal file creation date). Then set the system date to whatever "file saved" date you wish, and close/save the document. Note that doing this on some systems will confuse something within Windows, and forever afterwards it will complain the system date is not set (even though you DID set it back correctly).
Further, note that as far as I can determine, there is no way of opening w/ formatting a WinWord 2 document aside from having an old version of Word (v2, v6/Office 4). Anything later simply gets the text and strips out formatting.
PS: OpenOffice/LibreOffice has pretty much the same limitations.
I am still hoping I might find a nice command-line utility that will edit all the 'document origin' properties, since DOpus (with all the amazing functionality it has) cannot do that with its native metadata editing pane (though it CAN edit the text fields such as 'author' title, subject, etc.).
It turns out that Attribute Magic Pro HAS a command-line option! So, If one were to spend the time, it seems possible to create a call to it from inside DOpus, which would make the required changes for selected file(s). At the moment, I found it simper to edit the context menu so one can start AttributeMagic for a given folder and then edit the desired files.
=JP