Exporting Full Letters

[KeriV]

We have a bunch of letters in FM Pro 4.0 that I need to export to Word. I have been trying to find some sort of way, but am finding myself deeper in a confused state. I dont want just fiels, I need the full letters.

Thanks for any help you can give!

Keri

[Kurt Knippel]

quote:

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Originally posted by KeriV:

We have a bunch of letters in FM Pro 4.0 that I need to export to Word. I have been trying to find some sort of way, but am finding myself deeper in a confused state. I dont want just fiels, I need the full letters./B]

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What is a "full letter" and how was it implemented in FMP?

There are a bunch of ways to accomplish this, but I would need to answers to the questions above first.

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Kurt Knippel

Consultant

Database Resources

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.database-resources.com

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[KeriV]

Sorry, as you can tell, I am new to FM. These letters are found under script on the main toolbar. They can also be found above the little rolodex thing. OK, not a very good answer so far. What they really are, they are letters that we have setup so send to customers. These letters print with a name and address and other info according to whom they are being sent to. I really just need to get the letters over to word. Right now I am not worried about the area's that you can make a choice in. I am assuming this has something to do with scripts.

A little background here. We are moving all of our info over to a new manufacturing software (ROI) and I was recently hired to do that. The person who was the FM Pro expert was fired, he was a bad boy. So, if it sounds like I am up a creek without a paddle, I am. I have now been given his duties. They are not expecting miracles, which is good, because I dont think they will get them. Now I need a crash course in FM.

I hope the info I gave you is enough to at least start to understand. I am not sure about any wording. I have been given a book to study, the FileMaker Pro 4 Companion. Hopefully between the book and the web, I will be able to get through this.

Thanks ahead of time for any help you are able to give!

Keri

[BobWeaver]

I assume that you have name, address, body, etc. as separate fields, and you want to combine them into a complete formatted letter?

There's a rather good example of creating word processor compatable rtf format text that can be exported as a complete document in the Coulombre and Price book. I will give my slightly altered version of it. It involves creating a dummy letter in your word processor, formatted as you require, but with dummy info in the appropriate spots, ie. ***name*** where the name appears, ***address*** where the address appears, ***body*** where the body of the letter appears, etc. You then save the letter in rtf format. You can import the whole thing into a global text field gFormletter in filemaker and then make a calculated field called cOutputLetter

cOutputLetter=

Substitute(Substitute(Substitute(gFormletter,

"***name***",namefield),

"***address***",addressfield),

"***body***",bodytextfield)

Now you can simply export the cOutputLetter field of each record and have formatted letters to go into your word processor. If you want a separate file for each letter it will be a bit of a manual operation because you will have to manually name each file. But if you just want to print them from the word processor, just export all the records into a single file. Just make sure that you put a page break at the end of your original dummy letter.

[BobWeaver]

Err, maybe my previous post was more complex than what you need. If you are new to filemaker and just need some tips on getting data exported out, you can combine things like name, address, body etc. into a simple unformatted calculated field like so:

OutputLetter= Namefield & AddressField & body

You can also insert some quoted text "like this" as you like.

The solution varies depending on exactly what you need to do. Hopefully, this gives you something to start with.

Also, go find the filemaker manual. It's quite readable.

[This message has been edited by BobWeaver (edited December 20, 2000).]

[KeriV]

Thanks, You are GREAT for helping a newbie out!!! I will try this all out and let you know how it went. Thanks for reminding me of the manual. I hunted it up and it will be my evening reading.

Keri