Automatic text resizing in a field?

[Steve G]

One of my tables has a certificate layout that, when printed, generates what is essentially a Certificate of Merit with the person's name on it. That layout has, among other things, a field for the person's name. The field's default text size is 60pt and it works fine.

The problem is that sometimes there will be more than one name in that field. It's even possible that there could be many names in there (like, 15 or more) and 60 point type won't cut it.

I've managed to set up conditional formatting that will adjust font size based on the number of words. Generally this works well except when I have really long names to contend with. So when it's "John Smith, Mary Jones" it works fine, but when I have "Savatore Mattuciliogne, Belvedere Fredericks Wellington" it doesn't work so hot.

Is there any way to basically dynamically scale the text in a given field based on the amount of content that's in that field? (The way Acrobat does this with PDF forms is exactly what I need.)

[jamesducker]

Do it with a character count instead of a word count.

So the formula to trigger the formatting would be something like:

length ( NamesField ) > 120

rather than

wordcount (NamesField) > 2

Hope that helps.

James

[Steve G]

I try that but run into the same issue; names with a lot of thin characters (i, l, f, etc) measure differently than those with a lot of wide characters (w, m, n, etc).

[mr_vodka]

Try using a monospace font.

[Steve G]

Not possible in this situation. The font is to be used on a decorative certificate that's printed directly from FileMaker.

[mr_vodka]

Then I'm afraid that there is no easy solution for you. You may be able to use patterncount to separate out how many normal, narrow, and wide characters you have and then devise some sort of reasonable formula with it. I dont think you will have it down to an Exact science, but it may be close.