Automatic insertion of current date and time in alphabetic form

Question

I often find myself typing the current date and time on several documents, forms, etc.

Is there any lightweight application that would allow me to automatically insert (or copy to the clipboard) the current date and time (in alphabetical form, if possible) using just a simple keyboard shortcut? I'm interested in solutions for Windows.

Answer 1

You could do it using AutoHotkey.

An example from the AutoHotkey documentation:

:*:]d::  ; This hotstring replaces "]d" with the current date and time via the commands below.
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,, M/d/yyyy h:mm tt  ; It will look like 9/1/2005 3:53 PM
SendInput %CurrentDateTime%
return

An example from the AutoHotkey forum: Input system date and/or time, when u press a hot key:

$F12::
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
IfWinActive, Notepad
{
FormatTime, xx,, ddMMMyy ; This is one type of the date format
FormatTime, zz,, hh:mm:ss tt ; This is one type of the time format
SendInput, %xx%{Enter}
SendInput, %zz%
}
Return

See FormatTime for a list of the available date formats.

To set it up:

1. Download and install AutoHotkey_L, let it associate with .ahk files
2. Copy either of the above examples, paste in into Notepad, and save somewhere with an .ahk extension, e.g. My Documents/keys.ahk
3. Navigate to the file you saved and double click it
4. Add the .ahk script to your Startup folder

Answer 2

Short of just copying and pasting it to your documents, there is a feature to do that on Microsoft Word.