Hi everyone, I am new on this forum, so I hope this was the correct plac for my question.

First of all, I am from Argentina, so excuse my english.

My problem is this:

I have a designed database for contact information for the attendees of a conference, so, what I need is to send this info for everyone in the database, but for the people with 2 or 3 participations, sent just 1 e-mail with all the info.

I have made my layout with a self related table, so when the Last Name is found, is displayed on a portal, with all the info of that particular participation with the date, hour, subject and what kind of activity will be hold.

I used to do (and I am still) that on a basic combination of Excel/Word/Entourage, but I am tired of those tedius programs.

I make my database on excel, with the fields (Columns) Name, date, hour, theme, etc. and on the word document I put a Letter on the "Data Merge Manager" with all the text I need to send, and as a last step, combine the database to e-mail, and get de 190 emails I need, but I get for those wo participate twice, 2 different e-mails.

The problem here is that in most cases, the people does not even read the second e-mail, so imagine on the fourth they receive.

If I could sent everything from filemaker, with the info on my portal as a field on the mail body, formated like this (I will mark on colors the Fields I have on the database):

---

Dear [color:red]Dr. [color:green]John [color:red]Doe:

We have great pleasure on....

Your participation will take place as follows (Here is the data on the portal):

1. [color:red]November, [color:green]21, [color:red]2006. On the [color:green]Round table: brain decease; with the subject: "[color:red]Antibiotics".

2. (Here continues the portal)

Hoping to coun with your...

---

An so on with the formal text to end the letter.

I am breaking my minth on two.

I can´t figure out how to do that, I have tryed many things, and I want to avoid sent an attached PDF becouse most people says that "the machine detects a possible infected file attached", and they delete the e-mail.

If anyone has a workaround, please let me know.

If there is no way I can do that, I will have to be chained to the Microsoft products to the end of time.

Thanks everyone.

Pablo

Create a blank layout, and use the Text Tool to create your letter.

In the places where you want to personalize your letter, use the Merge Field function (Layout Mode [color:blue]>> Menu [color:blue]>> Insert [color:blue]>> [color:red]Merge field) Cmd + M on a Mac.

Dear <> <> <

We have great pleasure on....

Your participation will take place as follows <> <>: portal data fields.

1. November, 21, 2006. On the Round table: brain decease; with the subject: "Antibiotics".

2. (Here continues the portal)

Hoping to coun with your...

---

An so on with the formal text to end the letter.

I am breaking my minth on two.

HTH

Lee

Edited May 23, 200619 yr by Guest

Sorry, that does not works for me.

I am sending the "primitive" layout with the fields and on the layout format.

In the Layout you could see the portal and the related data.

Sorry, that does not works for me.

doesn't tell me anything either.

There is an example file at John Mark Osborne's site that shows what my approach.

http://www.databasepros.com/resources.html and search for Custom Merge Letters

HTH

Lee

Thanks, but what I need is to put the several items that figures on the portal, and the files you point have no portals.

I can do a Merge for and make PDFs but I want plain text e-mails, with the:

1. << Mesa >>, << Tema >>

2. << Mesa >>, << Tema >>

That figures on the portal, with the portal row number, so we could have as a reference this number, and all the info goes on a single e-mail.

Thanks a lot for your help.

I made you a sample where there are portal data, see attach

HTH

Lee

MergeFields.fp7.zip

Srry Lee, but I think I am not clear enoght.

I mean, what I need is to merge on the text field or a calculation every row of the portal.

So, in the merge layout, I get all the conferences.

If you take a look at my layouts, you will see that on the browse mode, you have 3 conferences with the same last name, so, I whant those 3 conferences combined into 1 single calculation or text.

I have been looking over the functions, but can´t found one that meets my needs, but I will keep looking.

I am trully sorry for disturb you, and whants to thanks you for your patience.

I am attaching 2 snapshots of what I want, and you could see why I don´t want to use PDF, becouse of all the empty space.

Pablo

Edited May 24, 200619 yr by Guest

Here I post the FILE. Please take a look, and you will see that I have a lot of parameters.

Sorry is in Spanish, but the fields and portals are the problems.

Thanks a lot.

-__Logins_del_Congreso_2006_CV_Converted.fp7.zip

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, I had to earn a little money. I looked at your files and your screen shots.

I don't speak Spanish at all, so your English is a whole lot better than my Spanish.

After reading your posts again, I think all you need to do is to create a Summary report. Take a look at the file by John Mark Osborne Here

for inspiration, as it seems to do what you are wanting.

HTH

Lee

Lee:

thanks a lot, I am looking at the file, and figuring out how to apply to my needs.

Meanwhile, I am forced to get back to the usual Excel-Word-entourage schema, becouse I am running out of time.

But since this is my real work (find better ways to do things), I will keep coming back, becouse I think FileMaker has a lot of potential on my work.

Thanks a lot, I will post when I break the barrier, and get the database as I whant.

See you soon.

Pablo