Displaying text in a number field

[john9210]

I would like to display a series of asterisks in a calculation field to flag certain conditions. For example, If (Weight<500,Weight,"*****"). Since this is a number field, it doesn't display *****. Is there a way to do this?

[Raybaudi]

Hi

The calc:

If ( Weight < 500 ; Weight ; "** ***" )

works, for display purpose, even if the field is a calculation field with result as number.

[Vaughan]

I'd keep text (especially * since it's a mathematical operator) out of number fields because it will cause massive problems down the track, like when you want to export the data to Excel or something.

If you have FMP 9.0 you can probably do somehting with the new conditional text formatting. Otherise for older versions I'd make a calc field that displays the asterisks conditionally and display this calc field near the number field.