I had the impression that you were sure that this extra space was coming in
via "false" evaluations in the IF fields, but just to be certain, could it
be coming in because the bookmarks in your included documents cover
paragraph marks and/or other white space?
I have to say that when I try this here (in a simplifed case where I just
replicate the IF field a few hundred times) I don't get any extra white
space except the stuff that comes in from bookmarks.
Peter Jamieson
"Heather" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've been really careeful to keep an eye on paragraph marks after my IF
fields...I'm starting to think that the larger issue is the sheer
amount of code I'm putting into these letters. Here is an example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lectio/291618325/
That is a working copy of my code, with white space inserted in between
each block of IF statements. When I paste it into my template letter, I
go through and delete all of the paragraphs and make it one big run-on
paragraph.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lectio/291622301/
That's as much as I could fit into a single screenshot. But there are
pages and pages of this...yesterday afternoon, I hit 12 pages of code
for a two page letter.
I'm trying reducing the code in the main letter to reference just two
of the conditions, and then merge a document into the letter if both
are true...that seems to be cutting down on the insertion of the white
space.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lectio/291623913/
I really appreciate your help (and macropods, and Graham, and others)
with this. Learning this code has been really difficult!
Heather
Peter Jamieson wrote:
It's difficult to tell why without seeing the document or a really
accurate
transcription of the field codes, but my best guess is as follows.
Suppose you have
a
{ IF b = c "d" "" }
{ IF e = f "g" "" }
i
then if both comparisons fail you will get
a
i
because there is a paragraph mark after each IF field, and it will always
be
inserted.
If you use
a{ IF b = c "d" "" }{ IF e = f "g" "" }i
you won't get these extra paragraph marks.
If you want to long chunks of field codes a bit easier to read (but with
more problems switching from field code view to field result view,
because
of repagination, unless you're in "Normal View"), you can use
a{ IF b = c "d" ""
}{ IF e = f "g" ""
}i
Peter Jamieson
"Heather" wrote in message
oups.com...
I thought that a false result returning nothing should have "" double
quotations?
macropod wrote:
Hi Heather,
The trick to suppressing the inclusion of extraneous text, spaces &
carriage
returns/line feeds in to conditionally include them in your IF tests.
For example, instead of having a space after:
{IF{MERGEFIELD admittype}= HS {IF{MERGEFIELD evalcmp111}= 2010
{IF{MERGEFIELD evalcmpvalue111}= 80 {IF{MERGEFIELD evalcmpvalue111}
85
"{INCLUDETEXT "c:\\master_comment.doc" admission_award_80_to_84}"}}}}
when the result is empty, delete the space following the field and
encode
the field as:
{IF{MERGEFIELD admittype}= HS {IF{MERGEFIELD evalcmp111}= 2010
{IF{MERGEFIELD evalcmpvalue111}= 80 {IF{MERGEFIELD evalcmpvalue111}
85
"{INCLUDETEXT "c:\\master_comment.doc" admission_award_80_to_84} "}}}}
You can replace the space following the INCLUDETEXT field with a text
string
and/or a carriage return/line feed, if appropriate. You can just as
readily
incorporate the conditional text, spaces & carriage returns/line feeds
ahead
of the INCLUDETEXT field - you can even do both. Simply put all of the
conditional text within the quote characters used to define the bounds
of
the true result.
Cheers
--
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]
"Heather" wrote in message
oups.com...
Twice in a day...sorry, guys.
So I'm working on my merge codes, and the document is insanely
large.
Like, really big. Pages and pages of merge code IF statements -
there
are a ton of variables. My two page letter is up to 12 pages of
merge
code.
Problem is that when I have false results, and I specify "", I'm
getting a huge amount of blank space in my letters after I complete
the
merge.
Thoughts? Would a switch help with something like this?
Heather