how to make it skip a field if it's blank

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erica - 20 Jan 2004 17:51 GMT

Is there a way to make the field be skipped altogether if
there is no data in it? I'm merging data into a bulleted
list in a mail merge letter and don't want empty bullets
with no info after them if there are fewer items.

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Graham Mayor - 21 Jan 2004 06:58 GMT

Insert the field and the paragraph mark that follows it with a conditional
field eg

{IF {Mergefield Fieldname} <> "" "{Mergefield Fieldname}
"}

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<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
Graham Mayor - Word MVP
E-mail gmayor@mvps.org
Web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site www.mvps.org/word
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>

> Is there a way to make the field be skipped altogether if
> there is no data in it? I'm merging data into a bulleted
> list in a mail merge letter and don't want empty bullets
> with no info after them if there are fewer items.

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Cindy M -WordMVP- - 21 Jan 2004 20:17 GMT

Hi Erica,

Generally, the answer to this would be yes, you could
suppress a line if the field is blank. However, bullets and
numbering don't follow this rule.

However, if you create these lines using a SYMBOL (as in
Insert/Symbol) for the bullet, and nest them into IF fields,
you should get the result you're looking for. A pain to get
it all set up, I know...

Example (§ represents a bullet symbol from Insert/Symbol;
¶ represents a paragraph mark, where you must press ENTER
for the new line):

{ If { Mergefield A } <> "" "§ {Mergefield A}¶
" }{ If { Mergefield B } <> "" "§ {Mergefield B}¶
" }{ If { Mergefield C } <> "" "§ {Mergefield C}¶
" }

Remember that you need to use Ctrl+F9 to insert the pairs of
field brackets { }.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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:-)

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