customised letter layout

[simpleassid]

Hello all,

Have been a "lurker" for a while, and found all the answers to my questions, however i cant find any clues on this one...

What I am trying to do is create a letter that is personalised with information that is not directly in my database, for example; in the database i have a field that contains a partners name, if this is filled in there are additional paragraphs i need to include that relate to married couples, i've thought about using different layouts but there so many variables i would need about 20 diffenerent layouts,

what i need is an IF calculation that populates perhaps a merge field with data that is stored somewhere else?

i'm a bit confused and i'm sure anyone reading this is also!!!

Simon

[Digital Life]

Simon you're already on the right track. Put the optional text into a series of fields. If you only have a few paragraphs then they could go into global fields. If you have lots of these variable paragrapsh then it would be better to put them into their own table. That way it would be completely flexible if you need to add other optional text in the future. Make sure that each record has it's own Record number or a name to identify it. Then you make a field which is called Text for lack of a better name and make it a calculation field = "Starting Text" & If(Not IsEmpty(Partner);Partner Text Field; "") & so on where "Starting Text" is the field containing the starting text. You'll want to put carriage returns in this as well and they may have to be calculations as well to get the proper spacing. ie) if partner is not empty then you'll want to put in a carriage return but if it's empty you won't. Is this enough of a help to get started? JJ

[simpleassid]

yes jj that is exactly what i needed, just couldnt see anything about the IF calculation in the manual.

thanks for the quick response...

simon