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Customize - Dates



The Date settings are reached by choosing Customize from the Options tab on the Ribbon bar and then clicking on the Dates option on the menu panel.   (See Customize Options for a summary of the customization options.)

Legacy supports many different formats for both inputting and displaying dates in the program.  You can enter dates in almost any conceivable format and they are reformatted to a consistent format of your selection.  You can also include several prefix modifiers including Before, After, About, Between, Circa, BC, and AD.  Legacy also recognizes several abbreviations of these modifiers.

5.1 Dates Displayed As
 Select from six date display formats:

 mmm dd, yyyy Nov 30, 1854 
 dd mmm yyyy 30 Nov 1854 
 mm-dd-yyyy 11-30-1854 
 dd-mm-yyyy 30-11-1854 
 yyyy mmm dd 1854 Nov 30 
 yyyy-mm-dd 1854-11-30 

When entering dates into Legacy, they are reformatted and redisplayed when you leave the field.  This frees you from worrying about the date format of the source document you are copying from.  You can enter the dates just as they appear, and Legacy will change them around automatically.

Two-Digit Day and Month Format
You can have Legacy format your dates with two digits for the day and month portions even when the numbers are less than 10.  To do this, select Format with 2-digit day/month.  Dates such as 1/5/1845 are changed to 01/05/1845.

Four-Digit Year Format
Formats all years with four digits, adding leading zeros to years that are before 1000.  For example, 0349 and 0005.

Note:  If you are not using the four-digit year formatting, years from 100 to 999 will appear with three digits.  Years from 32 to 99 will appear with two digits.  But, years from 1 to 31 will appear using four digits...  This is because numbers less than 32 can be confused with days, and numbers less than 13 can be confused with month numbers also.  So, to avoid this confusion, Legacy formats year numbers less than 32 with four digits.

Format Day With Period
Adds a period after the day number when using the dd mmm yyyy format.  For example, 21. Nov 1953.

5.2 Month Format
You can further alter the way dates are formatted by selecting abbreviated or full month names and initial or all uppercase month names.  Click the option buttons corresponding to the desired format.

5.3 Separators for numeric dates
If you are using either the dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy format, you can specify the separator character to place between the date parts.  Click the option button for the appropriate symbol.

If you are using a date format that doesn't include separator characters, such as 21 Apr 1900, then Legacy will use the selected date separator character between any year ranges.  For example, 21 Apr 1953-1958 would appear as 21 Apr 1953/1958 if the slash was chosen as the separator character.

5.4 Double Date Cutoff
Displays dates between 1582 and 1752 in the double date format.  The need for double dating was caused by the switch to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian calendar (also known as New Style and Old Style).  (See Calendar History for more information.)  

5.5 Date Checking
Checks your date field entries and imported dates for consistency and adherence to accepted date formats.  If you would like to be able to enter dates in any format, uncheck this option.  (Only dates entered in an accepted format can be sorted.)  There are two levels of date acceptability.  Some dates, for example, Right around 1764, are not formatted correctly but Legacy can extract the year and use it for sorting purposes.  Other dates, such as Right after the flood, are not recognizable dates and are just stored as is but can't be sorted.  You can choose to be alerted when you enter any questionable or unrecognizable date, or just when the date is unrecognizable.

5.6 Preposition Before Full Dates on Reports
When making sentences for narrative reports that include dates, you can choose to:  Use the standard preposition: on or Do not use the preposition.  These result in the formats, for example, of:  Mary Smith was born on 12 Mar 1888 or Mary Smith was born 12 Mar 1888, respectively.

5.7 Date Prefixes
Legacy allows several date prefixes.  These let you enter approximate dates that can still be sorted.  You can change the standard abbreviations that are displayed when you enter these prefixes, although it is suggested that you use the defaults as they are accepted and recognized by nearly everyone.   Note: Date prefixes can only be one word.

The BC prefix can also be used as a suffix if desired.  Select from the two options below the BC prefix: Beginning of Date or End of Date.  This setting is used when formatting a BC date.  (When entering this type of date, the "BC" is recognized at either the beginning or the end.)

Saving Your Settings as Future Default Values
You can save the option settings you have selected to be future User-Defaults.  See How Legacy Saves Option Settings for more information.

Changing the Settings Back to Their Default Values
You can change the customize options back to their default settings.  See  How Legacy Saves Option Settings for more information.

For information on the other sections in the Customize area, see:
General Settings
Data Entry and Edit
Data Format
Data Defaults
Locations
Sources
View
Colors
Fonts
Launch
Other Settings

(See Where to Find an Option for a complete, alphabetized list of each available option and where to find it.)



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