Peter Hillier-Brook wrote:
CarlP wrote:
OK, I've been here before, with OO 1. OO 2.0.2 on WinXP. I'm trying
to do a mail merge but STILL can't get rid of blank lines. I have a
data source registered and can get the data to merge with the letter.
I insert a hidden paragraph (in the form of "not (<FIELD NAME>)") with
the field name copied directly from the merge document so I know it's
correct.
But when I merge, I either get the blank lines showing up, or I get
suppression of all of the lines with that field, whether or not any
one record has data there.
So, for example, I have:
Name
Address1
Address2
City, State Zip
Address 1 has data for some people, not for others. I insert a hidden
paragraph for Address1 (before the field name on the same line). Then
merge the data. If I select Show hidden paragraphs, all lines display
and print, whether there is data or not (blank lines show up). But
when I de-select the View Hidden Paragraphs, all of the lines with the
hidden paragraph function disappear, whether there is data or not.
This is the same behavior as under v.1, and I thought it was supposed
to be fixed in 2.0.2. Am I doing something wrong?
It's possible that you are doing something wrong, most likely in the
condition field of the Hidden Paragraph(s). The form of the condition
should be as follows:
![AddressBook.Sheet1.Title] AND ![AddressBook.Sheet1.Initials] AND
![AddressBook.Sheet1.Name
![AddressBook.Sheet1.Address]
Please note:
1) "Title", "Initials" and "Name" are all on one line and have wrapped
into two in my (and probably your) mail client, that's why I have
inserted a blank line to differentiate between the two lines.
2) The Hidden Paragraph field should be on the end of the line, not at
the beginning before the field name: that's probably why all your lines
are hidden.
3) "AddressBook" is my data source name. You should substitute this with
your name.
If this doesn't solve your problem, please come back with more detail.
Regards
Peter HB
Thanks, Peter. I've tried your suggestion but it makes no difference.
I'm being careful about the syntax of the condition and I've tried it
with and without "<" and">", with and without "(" instead of "[", with
just the field name and with the entire data source path. I've tried it
in the form of "not (FieldName)" "! (FieldName)" "(FieldName) EQ """ and
more. I've even put the Hidden Paragraph back in front of the field on
the line (as the manuals and guides all say to do), and then re-tried
all of the combinations of conditions. Nothing works.
I did recall from my earlier experience under v.1 that the merge would
only work if certain characters were not in field names (typical file
name no-nos like /,\,!,@, etc.). Since the orginal data comes from a
complex Filemaker Pro solution which I'm not going to re-create in Base
(it would take me years to do so), the fields I need to use include the
"\" character. (Filemaker allows many such characters in file names b/c
it was originally developed under the Mac platform which didn't mind
these characters in field and file names.) So I removed that character
from a test data set and tried my combination of approaches (above), but
the field continues to remain hidden whether there is data there or not.
One last word. I use a CSV file as my master data source b/c that's
what Filemaker will export readily that OO can use. I believe I've set
it up as a source for a simple Base file (just has this table, no
layouts, etc.) through ODBC, but I can't remember the exact way I did
this. In any case, the data and field names show up in the "Beamer"
just fine.
Any other suggestions? I'm running out of time to figure this out and
could end up back with M$ - which I don't want to do.
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