Export merge fields as .txt?

[Dirigo]

Hello all,

 

New to FM but have been going through the LinkedIn Learning modules and have a project in the works. I have a database of "listees" whose information I publish in a yearly directory (name, address, phone number, associations, etc.). I need to have this output to a .txt file (tab) so I can copy/paste into QuarkXpress, but am struggling to find an efficient way to do this. Using merge fields is ideal because I can add punctuation between the fields as opposed to exporting records, but I can't seem to find a way to export these fields to .txt in all my searches. 

Am I missing something or is this not possible? 

Thanks!

[Ocean West]

use a script

set a variable  $path  = Get(DesktopPath) & myfile.txt  

use that to export a mer file that would include your headers,

If you are in FM18 you can create, open and write to a file and iterate thru adding a header row and then data rows all tab separated.

you could also build this data in to a single field then export field contents saving it as txt.

 

[comment]

You can export only field data, not layout objects such as text typed onto the layout (including fields merged in such text block).

To get the result you want, you can define calculation fields, for example:

LastName & ", " & FirstName

and export them instead of the original fields. Alternatively, export as XML and use a custom XSLT stylesheet to combine the fields and insert the punctuation.

--
P.S. I am not familiar with QuarkXpress but I would expect it to allow a similar manipulation to be executed during/after import.

 

[Dirigo]

Thank you! I will look into calculation fields as that sounds exactly what I'm looking for. Still spending most of my time learning what is actually possible with this program!