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MS Office Forum / Word / Mailmerge and Fax / May 2004Auto Deleting Space in Merge Doc when No Data
Hi everybody. I have a Word document (Word 2000) with several lines of items and amounts. Each item and amount are separate, individual merge fields, example Item1, Amount1, Item2, Amount2, etc.. If there is no data for an item and an amount, is there a way to automatically delete the blank line from the document, the other lines are re-adjusted, and no blank space prints? Would I need to use a macro for this or is there some built-in functionality that would take care of deleting the blank space? Thanks, Kim Finleyson Kim@[nospam]PCSSInc.com Hi Msnews.microsoft.com, > I have a Word document (Word 2000) with several lines of items > and amounts. Each item and amount are separate, individual merge fields, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > or is there some built-in functionality that would take care of deleting the > blank space? If the merge field is the only field in the paragraph, then Word should take care of suppressing the blank line, itself. In Word 2000, this option can be turned on/off, however, so you do want to check in the dialog box you get when you click the "Mail merge..." button on the merge toolbar. If other characters are in the same line (even a space), then you need to use an IF field to evaluate the content and control the display. The IF field you need would probably look something like this: { IF { Mergefield Item } <> "" "{ If { Mergefield Amount } <> 0 "{ Mergefield Item } { Mergefield Amount }¶ " "" }" "" } Ctrl+F9 to insert the field brackets: { } Press ENTER where you see ¶ in the equation above Alt+F9 to turn the field codes on/off F9 to force the fields to update (or move to another record) You'll notice that the formula checks for an empty result / a zero result. If either is empty, then "nothing" is displayed. If both are true, then the mergefields are displayed, with a paragraph return. This means that all the IF combinations should be inserted into one paragraph, and additional paragraphs will only be generated as required. IOW, start the next IF combination immediately after the closing bracket of the previous one. Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003) http://www.word.mvps.org This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Thanks Cindy! I actually found the solution with the "IF" field the same day I posted this message -- ironically, I found the solution on your website before you posted your reply. I wanted to mention that this was my first attempt at using Outlook Express to post a message (I've gone through the web browser in the past), so did not know I had my return name set as "msnews.microsoft.com". I fixed this now, so my posts will have the correct return name. By the way, the question I asked was actually forwarded to me from one of our programmers at our company. Our application uses Word merges intensely to allow users to generate custom forms/notices, but unfortunately, the code for the merges was written some time ago and I believe may not be taking advantage of Word's improved functionality. I volunteered to help with these problems so am trying to familiarize myself with the Word merge process and apply it to what we are doing here. Would you happen to know of any document that traces how Word merge functionality has changed throughout the different versions of Word (pre-Word 97 through 2003)? If so, I would appreciate any links that may explain how this process has changed over the years and what improvements were added. Thanks again! Cordially, Kim Finleyson Technical Communications PCSSInc.com Kim@[nospam]PCSSInc.com > Hi Msnews.microsoft.com, > [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or > reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Hi Kim, > Would you happen to know of any document > that traces how Word merge functionality has changed throughout the > different versions of Word (pre-Word 97 through 2003)? I don't know of any documents on this, no. Quite a bit is stored in my memory :-) Word 2.0 -> Word 6.0 -------------------- Introduction of the Mail Merge Helper interface. More ODBC drivers; plus integration with MS Query. Inclusion of the Avery Label Wizard. The buttons on the mail merge toolbar, most especially, the list of merge fields and the list of "Word fields", Data preview, record search, error check... Then there really weren't any changes for quite a long time, except for additional ODBC drivers, as they became available in MDAC. If anything, mail merge actually deteriorated as it didn't keep up with developments on the database side. Somewhere in the time span (moving to Word 97, I think) is when they started sticking section breaks in after every lable page. "Find record" was also broken, going into Word 97. Word 6.0 -> Word 2002/2003 -------------------------- Lot of changes going into Word 2002, although not in the basic way mail merge really works - OLE DB as the default connection method - the new interfaces (Mail Merge Wizard, Recipients dialog box) - *.mdb file as "native" Word data source type - Address Block and Greeting Line fields - the new switches that let you specify "text before" and "text after" within merge fields - "Open Data Source" defaulting to "My data sources" - in VBA, the MailMerge events were introduced - changing the naming of merging with no new page section breaks from "catalog" to "dirctory" - "Find record" was finally fixed, but only in the UI, not for VBA - ODBC is no longer offered as a connection method for text files (unless installing over an older version, where this was available; can be called up if one knows how, though) Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003) http://www.word.mvps.org This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Cindy: Thanks a lot! I am asked Word questions quite often at my company...I will forward this information on as applicable. Sincerely, Kim Finleyson > Hi Kim, > [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] > This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow > question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) Hi Kim, > I am asked Word questions quite often at my company...I > will forward this information on as applicable. One more change occurred to me, last night: Using an AddressBook (Schedule+, Outlook, etc.) was introduced in Office 95 :-) Cindy Meister INTER-Solutions, Switzerland http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003) http://www.word.mvps.org This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or reply in the newsgroup and not by e-mail :-) |
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