I need to create a parent text field [Parent Table] that combines the first names of all of the related children [student Table] for use as a Merge Field in letters.

Example: Dear Mrs. Smith, <> have been doing very well in school.

I've always wanted to know how to combine fields from multiple related records but have never figured out how. Any help???

The easiest way is the List ( ) function. You can either grab the related fields directly, or more commonly, create a calc field in the child that concantenates a nice string, and then use List to bring that into the parent.

I've created a list field to combine the related names but I need to be able to use it as a merge field item in letters so I have to change format from:

John

Mary

Joseph

to:

John, Mary, Joseph

Ant ideas on a calc for a new field to help me format this?

I've created a list field to combine the related names but I need to be able to use it as a merge field item in letters so I have to change format from:

John

Mary

Joseph

to:

John, Mary, Joseph

Ant ideas on a calc for a new field to help me format this?

Substitute( List( relation::field; "¶"; ", "))

Thanks Bruce! I appreciate all the help.

Thanks for the solution, although I had to modify the code a little to get it to work:

Substitute( List( relation::field ); "¶"; ", ")