Good evening everyone and happy new year.

I have serveral fields which use repetitive text.

On layouts which use merge fields, is there anyway to embolden the text used as descriptions within the fields? Examples are below...

If ( IsEmpty (ShorePowerSpecs );"Amps:____ Location:____________" ; "Amps: " & ( ShorePowerSpecs[1] & " Location: " & ShorePowerSpecs[2])). I want to embolden the words Amps and Location.

In your calculation, use TextStyleAdd() like this around the text parts:

TextStyleAdd ( "Amps:" ; bold )

OK. That worked like a champ. Many Thanks!

Next question; Is it worth it? :-|

You can also use Substitute(). But is the calc worth it? Only you can say - what is the purpose of this information? Is it for quick reading by the User, printing in a report or ? If it is for readability then, by viewing your example, I cannot see advantage of adding bold to more words with Shore Power Specs already in bold.

In FileMaker, there are many ways of accomplishing the same thing. It is possible that we can suggest a display method which will be easier for the User.

There is also possibility of using merge variables fired by conditional format ... again depending upon purpose here. Most calcs are NOT worth it to me and I will go clean through my tool kit to find alternatives before I add one (unless I know I will be re-using it in many tables or situations). I am not sure this helps you, ProTour ... seems I just put the ball back in your court instead of assisting further.

But I (and others here) aren't going anywhere so ask away! :laugh2:

I will go ahead and use the calc simply because 1) one of my clients is still using FMP8 and 2) I'm a real stickler for the way things look on paper. It seems I spend 90% of my time on text formatting. At least I know that by using calcs the printout will look the same regardless of FMP post 7 version or operating platform.

In my business I deal with both Tour Managers and Production Managers. Most of the time only the TM has access to the db so he prints out a worksheet for the PM which he fills in and returns to the TM for data entry and final printing. At times when the TM is advancing a show he will find out some of the PM info and enter it ahead of time which would appear on the PM's worksheet.

I am formatting the report so the PM has text lines where the info is not pre-supplied. Below are examples.

Thanks again for all your help.