Merge Fields: Need to get << >> text to appear

[cswn]

I have a situation where I have multiple letter options, in other words, based on a individuals certain medical criteria, they will get a specific letter. Within each letter there are four to five customized paragraphs. For example, one for Cholesterol, one for HDL etc..etc..

I have developed a table of all the possible paragraphs and related them back to the main contact table and created the fields necessary in the main contact table to capture the right paragraphs. HERE'S THE TROUBLE. Within the paragraphs, I need to personalize here and there eg..<<Fname>> or <<datebloodtest>> etc.. This will only show if I paste directly onto layout in layout mode and then display in Browse Mode.

So, what can I do? Can I force the application into layout mode via a script to paste the text or is there another way of getting these merge fields to appear within the body of these paragraphs.

Thanks for any assistance

Chris

[kenneth2k1]

Hello:

You can make the body of your letter a calc field that substitutes your <<merge fields>> in a global field for the actual content. For example:

Assume you have a letter and you want to put the person's blood pressure in there. Blood pressure should be a field (I'll call it BloodPress). Make a global field that has the body of your letter complete with the <<BloodPress>> (I'll call it LetterBody). The content of LetterBody will look something like this:

Dear John:

During your last check-up, your blood pressure was <<BloodPress>>. Blah, blah, blah, blah...

Sincerely,

Blah, blah.

Then make a calc field:

Field LetterCalc=

Substitute (LetterBody, "<<BloodPress>>", "BloodPress")

It will replace the text string <<BloodPress>> with the actual content of BloodPress field. So it will look like:

Dear John:

During your last check-up, your blood pressure was 150/96. Blah, blah, blah blah

You get the idea. You can also nest substitute operations. I hope this makes sense.

Ken

[cswn]

Thanks for the assistance. The helps greatly.

Chris

[cswn]

One more question though, did what you described and that works great. But how do I substitute multiple fields within the body of the letter. In other words, in one paragraph I might have <<fname>> and <<date_blood>>.

[cswn]

Nevermind Kenneth,

Got it, created a script that continues to reset the global letter field upon a substitution. So works great now.

Thanks!!!!

[kenneth2k1]

In my opinion, it would be easier to just nest the substitutions. I'm not at a computer that has FM right now so this might not be totally accurate, but it would look something like this:

Substitute(Substitute(LetterBody, "<<fname>>", fname) "<<date_blood>>", date_blood))

You could do this to sub a lot of text.

Ken