[Peter Jamieson]

Yes:-)

Peter Jamieson

"macropod" wrote in message
...
Hi Peter,

Since we're already using an IF test to make sure the bonus is greater
than 0, there's no need for the negative an 0 arguments in the picture
switch. So:

{IF{MERGEFIELD Bonus} 0 "In recognition of your performance in 2006, you
will receive a bonus payment of {MERGEFIELD Bonus \# £,0.00}." ""}

;-)

Cheers

--
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]
-------------------------

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
Hi Macropod,

Yes, much neater. But then it needs to be more like

{IF{ MERGEFIELD Bonus} 0 "In recognition of your performance in 2006,
you will receive a bonus payment of { MERGEFIELD Bonus \#"£,0.00;;" }."
""}

I think :-)

Peter Jamieson

"macropod" wrote in message
...
Hi Peter,

In my experience, you can only have 64 characters between the double
quotes in a numeric picture switch.

To overcome that, I'd suggest coding the field as:
{IF{ MERGEFIELD Bonus} 0 "In recognition of your performance in 2006,
you will receive a bonus payment of { MERGEFIELD Bonus}." ""}

Cheers

--
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]
-------------------------

"Peter Jamieson" wrote in message
...
The problem with combining \b, \f and \# is that \b (at least) is
applied first, then \# is applied to the result. Typically, most of the
text in your \b switch will be discarded and...well, it just won't be
what you want.

To go back to my post of 02 Nov 2006 on this general subject, what to
do depends on exactly what can be in
"Bonus" and how you want it displayed. In this case I think it's fair
to assume that "Bonus" could
have the following types of content:
1. numeric, non-zero, positive, e.g. 1.234
2. numeric, zero, e.g. 0
3. blank (could come from a numeric column where Word or the data
source has
not substitued a "0"), i.e. ""
Using \b and \# suggests you want the following:

1. in recognition of your peformance in 2006, you will receive a bonus
payment of £1.23.
2. and 3. blank
(If you want to deal with a negative value maybe it shouldn't be named
"Bonus" :-) )
If so, I suggest you try the following fields:
( SET mybonus { MERGEFIELD Bonus \#"£,0.00;;" }
}{ IF "{ REF mybonus }" = ""
""
"in recognition of your peformance in 2006, you will receive a bonus
payment of { REF mybonus }." }

(all the {} need to be the special "field code braces" you can insert
using ctrl-F9).

Ideally you would be able to do this much more simply using

{ MERGEFIELD Bonus \#"'in recognition of your peformance in 2006, you
will receive a bonus payment of '£,0.00;;" }

or by applying the \b and \f switches to the { REF bonus } field, but
those switches are only available in the MERGEFIELD field.

Peter Jamieson

"Martin Jones" martinjones1260@gmailDOTcom wrote in message
...
Hi

I have successfully created a mail merge letter that includes the
following field:

{ MERGEFIELD "Bonus" \b "in recognition of your peformance in 2006,
you will receive a bonus payment of £" \f". " } where "Bonus" is the
datafield in my Excel database.

Can anybody tell me how to also incorporate a switch to format the
bonus value that is picked up from the Excel database that feeds the
merge? At present, amounts like £37.50 are merging as "£37.5", without
the zero in the 50. I could use a Word Find/Replace to change ".5." to
".50", but I would like to automate it during the merge itself if at
all possible

I think I know which switch to include - had planned on using this
one: \# ##,###.## - but I don't know where I should include it in the
above and whether it should be immediately adjacent to the other
characters or separated by a space! If that switch/type of switch is
wrong, please let me know! None of the webpages I have looked at
indicate how to combine multiple field switches.

many thanks in advance

kind regards
Martin


PS: Thanks to Peter Jamieson for his previous help!