OK, I'm a newbie to FMP. I have a "database" in Excel I need to import to FMP and convert to numbers. For example, if the field in Excel is "Unemployed" I want that to be a "1" in FMP, if "Employed" in Excel, then "2" in FMP. No clue how to do that. Sorry for the total newbiness, and thanks for the help.

Create a text field named "EmployTxt". Then create a calculation field, number result,

"Employ_c," =

Case ( EmployTxt = "Employed", 2,

EmployTxt = "Unemployed", 1)

I'm assuming those are the only 2 choices. It will have nothing if neither of those is true. There are other ways to make this a permanent change, using Replace, so you could toss the Txt field. But the above is the easiest.

Hi Susie,

Fenton has suggested a way to handle one example you gave, however, I have a feeling that there are going to be more. It may be helpful for you to attached a sample of your Excel database, and maybe we can give you some additional help or pointers.

Lee

Thank you for the help, but I couldn't get your code to work, Fenton (probably because I'm not a developer). I think I'll probably have to use the backup plan of re-assigning the values in SPSS.

Well, you're developing, so you're a developer :-)

Attached is an example. Basically you just import your Excel column into the EmployTxt field. There is only 1 Excel column, right? Otherwise we'd need something a little different.

Employment.zip

actually, you can alos to the same calc in Excel, using almost the same syntax as in FileMaker, then import that column iknstead of the original.