Is there a simple way that I don't lose the formatting from my date field when I merge it into a word document?

I can format the date in the same way for each field and sometimes I get 12:00:00 and sometimes I get a string like 46141.

I have to literally type in the individual date for each item as a text file...defeating the purpose. Or look through all my documents and edit all the incorrecting formatting blips...also defeating the purpose of setting this up as a mergeable file.

Any simple solutions to this? Also have the same formatting errors with zipcodes moving over. zip code format in excel gets truncated when zip begins with Zero...and in MA...everything begins with 0! Help please!