Merge

[tmac]

One of my annual responsibilities, as a teacher of disabled children, is to write each student a prescriptive educational plan (IEP) for the next school year. It's composed of many variables, including Annual Goals and Instructional Objectives appropriate for the individual child's skill needs. I am creating a bank of goals and objectives, which grows each time I write new ones, to use as a resource. There are times when a previously written goal or objective is appropriate for another child and I would like them to automatically insert the child's first name instead of referring to him/her as "the student." IE..."Given ten 2 and 3-digit addition problems requiring regrouging, /Johnny/ will get 85% or better correct without teacher assistance and within the specified math period." Unfortunately, the merge ability is available only in layout mode. Is there any way to accomplish this type of merge while entering information in browse mode? Thanks for any suggestions.

[birdman]

Hi, it sounds like a case for a calculation field, but it really depends more on how your information is setup.

Another possible solution would be to use the Replace command. If you use Replace with a calculated result, then a calculation could be generated as follows:

Substitute (Goal, "the student", StudentFirstName)

where Goal is the field where you are writing the students goals, "the student" is the text you wish to be substituted, and StudentFirstName is the field you will getting the replacement text from.

You could then put a specific text string in your list of goals and objectives which you could replace with the desired result via a script/button.