I have a database of widget orders. The problem is that when a customer buys four widgets I get a record for each widget with the customers name, address, and widget ordered (I cannot change how I get this data). For shipping I need to combine all the widgets ordered for each customer into a field or multiple fields but into one record.

Any help would be appreciated!

Why not use a related file and portal to enter purchases for customers? Each related record would contain the customer's id and one widget id, plus any other necessary fields. You can then create a value list based on relationship::widgetID and use a ValueListItems calculation to display them all in one field.

Substitute( ValueListItems( Status(CurrentFileName), "widgetIDs" ), "

Or, going in the other direction, print the order with the Client data in a Subsummary part, Sorted by client. The widgets go in the Body. The advantage of this method is that you can have any number of "widget" fields (quantity, price, subtotal, etc.).