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Jmadsen
Power User
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 53
Location: Denmark
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 Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2004 6:05 am Post subject: Form letters and empty fields |
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I'm working with a database where some fields in a selection of records may be empty (i.e.not all of the records have an 'adressline2').
Whenever I want to make form letters in StarOffice with such a selection, I get an empty line in the letter wherever the fields are empty.
How can I eliminate those empty lines? Is there some sort of setting or add-on to the program, that can solve my problem?
Another problem - when working with another database and form letters in StarOffice if the fields are empty as described above, the letters end up looking like this:
Peter Jackson
123 Fakestreet
<<adressline2>>
Springfield
StarOffice leaves the fieldname and not a blank line if all of the fields in the selection are empty. Any ideas to why and how it can be avoided?
Thanks! |
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JohnV
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Joined: 07 Mar 2003
Posts: 8995
Location: Lexinton, Kentucky, USA
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| Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2004 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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For the first problem, with your cursor behind the <adressline2> field, do Insert > Fields > Other > Function tab, then select Hidden Paragraph and set the Condition to:
adressline2 EQ "". To see this work on screen make sure View > Hidden Paragraphs is off.
Don't have any thoughts on the second issue although the above may also cure it. |
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Jmadsen
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Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 53
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2004 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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The problem is that your solution only works if I know for sure exactly which fields are empty - and I don't know that if I have a selection of several hundred people, and if I knew I might as well leave that field out of the letter.
Also it doesn't cure the problem with the blank line.... |
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JohnV
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Location: Lexinton, Kentucky, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 5:13 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | only works if I know for sure exactly which fields are empty |
I'm not sure how to respond to this comment.
If by "which fields" you mean which records out of your 100 have no value in the field adressline2 then the answer provided should work. It in essence says, "If adressline 2 is blank then hid this paragraph."
If by "which fields" you mean adressline2 AND some field other than adressline2 then you are asking a different question but we need to know what that question is before trying to provide an answer.
Couple of questions about your second issue. Is MS Word in any way involved with this problem? Does it really show <<adressline2>> or does it show <adressline2>? What database are you using when this problem occurs, which probably won't help me but might help someone else? |
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Jmadsen
Power User
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 53
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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Adressline2 was just an example, it might as well be the attention field that's empty. The problem is that if I have a selection of several hundred records, I don't know for sure if they all have an adresseline2 or an attention person or some other field might be empty.
The chances are that most records don't have an adressline2, but some do, så I still have to add the field to my letter. But in case the record does NOT have a adressline2 I would like to eliminate the blank line in my letter....
I have been testing the Hidden Paragraph function with the condition adresseline2 EQ "" - which I thought was supposed to hide the paragraph when the condition was true (-the adressline2 was empty), but it doesn't work that way for me!?! It just hides the adressline2 all the time even if it's not empty!
I'm working with a simple text-based database while testing, but it has to work with an Oracle database too. And I'm using StarOffice 6.0.
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear enough the first time... |
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