Im a newb here, and trying to write a mailmerge that pulls data from an
excel file.

I have it working, but I get blanks in my letter where the recipient
isnt making that purchase.

for example right now I have lots of items that dont always get filled
because they are blank in my database:

Hello thanks for your order:

{MERGEFIELD "Item1"}
{MERGEFIELD "Item2"}
{MERGEFIELD "Item3"}

Your order will be shipped out ASAP.

If I have a customer with just Item1 purchase, then there is a 2 blank
lines before the "Your order..." line starts. I understand that I need
an IF statment to get rid of the gap but I dont know how to write it. I
see that I have to hit control f9, but when I do that after my current
MERGEFIELD, I get too many of the {} symbols.

My question is simply trying to understand how to use the control F9
and when to do it, so that I have the right amount of symbols.

The code should look like:

{MERGEFIELD "Item1"}{ }{IF {MERGEFIELD "Item1"} <> ""
etc
etc

But again, I cant get the right amount of { } or I get too many. Am i
missing a fundamental way in editing a MERGEFIELD that is already in my
document? Im using Word 2007

Thanks!