Since I like to have revision dates and numbers in my documents how hard could it be to script their automatic update. Not hard at all. The following script will add an "Update Revision" menu item to a "Scripts" menu and when invoked it will replace all occurances of "Revision YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" in headers, footers, and the body with the current timestamp.
function onOpen() {
DocumentApp.getUi().createMenu('Scripts')
.addItem('Update Revision', 'updateRevisionTimestamp')
.addToUi();
};
function updateRevisionTimestamp() {
var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();
var date = Utilities.formatDate(new Date(), Session.getScriptTimeZone(), "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm");
var revisionPattern = "Revision [0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2} [0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}";
var revisionReplacement = "Revision " + date;
var body = doc.getBody();
if ( body ) {
body.replaceText(revisionPattern, revisionReplacement);
}
var footer = doc.getFooter();
if ( footer ) {
footer.replaceText(revisionPattern, revisionReplacement);
}
var header = doc.getHeader();
if ( header ) {
header.replaceText(revisionPattern, revisionReplacement);
}
return doc;
}