I am working on a database to generate scholarship award letters. I have the caluculations working correctly (i.e., award amount, number of semesters awarded, housing scholarship, etc.) and have the figures (via the numbers format) adding "$", "," and "." decimals.

This all works beautifully until I try to merge the resulting calculations into my award letter. Intead of getting "$16,000.00", I'm getting "16000". I notice when I click on the field, I see "16000" as well, but I cannot find a way to have FMP take the formatted number and merge it into the letter. If I try to place fields in the letter, the resulting appearance is not aligned, and would not be feasible to use.

I would greatly appreciate any help!

George

Actually your number field contains only:

16000

even if you see it as: $16,000.00 (due to your formatting options).

So you have to make a new calculated field (result text) with the help of this custom function or this

Daniele,

THANKS for your reply. This makes sense, but I'm not sure how to make it work. I don't see a means of referencing my field (you said create a new calculation field with result text using of of those solutions). If I create that caluculation field, what is it looking for?

I want it to take the result of my first field ($5,000) and then do the calculation (for example, $5000.00 * 4 (number of semeters) to arrive at a FINALCALC. This is the field (FINALCALC) that needs to be merged in the letter.

Does that make sense?

George

Hi George

don't merge the FINALCALC but merge this one (POSTFINALCALC ? ; this will work till $ 999,999,999,999.99):

------------------------------------------------

Let ( [

ThSep = "," ;

A = Int ( FINALCALC ) ;

L = Length ( A ) ;

D = Mod ( FINALCALC ; A );

R = If( D = 0; ".00";Left ( D & "0"; 3 ))

] ;

"$ " & Case (

L = 12 ; Left ( A ; 3 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 4 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 7 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 11 ; Left ( A ; 2 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 3 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 6 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 10 ; Left ( A ; 1 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 2 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 5 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 9 ; Left ( A ; 3 ) & ThSep & Middle (A ; 4 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 8 ; Left ( A ; 2 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 3 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 7 ; Left ( A ; 1 ) & ThSep & Middle ( A ; 2 ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A; 3 ) ;

L = 6 ; Left ( A ; 3 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 5 ; Left ( A ; 2 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

L = 4 ; Left ( A ; 1 ) & ThSep & Right ( A ; 3 ) ;

A

) //end Case

& R

) //end Let

------------------------------------------------

You can format merged fields in the same way like "regular" fields, with one exception - the formatting applies to the entire text object. For example, a text object containing:

"the amount of <>, times <> semesters, <> in total"

can be formatted to display EITHER as:

"the amount of $5,000.00, times $4.00 semesters, $20,000.00 in total"

OR as:

"the amount of 5000, times 4 semesters, 20000 in total"

IOW, all NUMBER FIELDS merged in the object take on the Number format applied to the object.

If you create a calculation field SemestersAsText (result is Text) = Semesters, and merge it into object, it will not be formatted as number.