Creating a Date in a Field that is All Uppercase
*Applies to: AutoCAD 2005*

Fields are a one of the big new features in AutoCAD 2005.  There are going to be many ways to use this feature over the next couple of years that no one has thought of yet and the design was built to be very flexible.  One such thing is how to create a Date that is all in Uppercase letters.  Dates by default in are Title case meaning they show up like "Apr" or "April".  To make the Date so it is all Uppercase you can use the built in Diesel Expression.  To do this follow the steps below.

Step 1 -	Start the FIELD command.
Step 2 -	Select Other from the Field category dropdown list.
Step 3 -	Select Diesel expression from the Field names list.
Step 4 -	In the large text box on the left enter the following: $(upper,$(edtime, $(getvar, tdcreate),MON. DD YYYY)) The above Diesel expression creates a value based on the date the drawing files was created on and the result looks like: MAR. 8 2004 $(edtime, $(getvar, tdcreate),MON. DD YYYY) The above Diesel expression creates a value based on the date the drawing files was created on and the result looks like: Mar. 8 2004
Step 5 -	Click OK to place the Mtext with the Field into the drawing.

Diesel Date/Time formatting: Date/Day Formatting
Format	Description	Example
D	Date	1
DD	Date with extra zero	01
DDD	Abbreviated day name	Sat.
DDDD	Full day name	Saturday
Month and Year Formatting
Format	Description	Example
M	Month	3
MO	Month with extra zero	03
MON	Abbreviated month name	Mar.
MONTH	Full month name	March
YY	Abbreviated year	04
YYYY	Full year	2004
Time Formatting
Format	Description	Example
H	Hour	9
HH	Hour with extra zero	09
MM	Minutes with extra zero	30
SS	Seconds with extra zero	08
MSEC	Millisecond (1/1000th of a second)	257
AM/PM	Displays AM or PM	AM
am/pm	Displays am or pm	am
A/P	Displays A or P	A
a/p	Displays a or p	a

This tip is inspired by something that was put together by Beau Turner and placed on this site with his permission.  You can visit Beau Turner at is Blog "Will Render for Food".