Cleaning up Notes Field

[johncrane]

I use a Now Contact as my primary contact manager. I want to export the data from Now Contact and Import it to FileMaker to do a field by Field clean up then Sync it with a Palm Device using FileMaker Mobile. The problem is the Notes Field in Now Contact. Now Contact allows for Multiple Notes to be present. When the data from this field is imported into Filemaker it has a character that looks like a Paragraph return character seperating the different notes. However is is not a return character. I have a script that uses a Substitute command that will find the character and replace it with a "-". The substitute command does not recognize the character so no substitution is done. I have copied and pasted the character into the substitute command and it still does not recognize it. PowerOn Software the developer of Now Contact says that the character is a combo of a LineFeed and Return and is ascii #10 and #13. I am not sure what a Combo character is. Does anyone have any suggestion as to how I can replace this character in FileMaker?

[BobWeaver]

If it looks like a paragraph marker, then it probably is a paragraph marker. The problem is that Filemaker treats that as a special character. When you put it in a text expression, Filemaker converts it to a line break character. But, in your case you actually need to have it remain as a paragraph symbol so that your substitute function will work properly. You can do this by creating a global text field "gParagraphSymbol" and putting a paragraph symbol in it (by typing option-7 on the Mac; I don't know what it is on a PC). Then use the global in your substitute function like this:

Substitute(NotesText,gParagraphSymbol,"-")

[johncrane]

That is really a cool trick. It works great. I modified the Substitute script step to substitute a return character and now the Notes field is correctly lined up with each note starting on a new line. It is very readable.

Thanks very much. You should put this technique in the FileMaker Advisor magazine.