[danhattan]

Thank you very, very much! Also, linked to your document in your first reply
and have already happily learned about the F9 key. I was just closing and
re-opening the document.

Hope life on Cyprus is grand!

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

Exactly! These are fields not brackets. CTRL+F9 inserts a field marker.
Incidentally you don't need the second set of quotes in this example
{ IF {MERGEFIELD Spouse } "" "{ MERGEFIELD Spouse }"}
would work

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


danhattan wrote:
I'm doing that to start with. Are you saying that each time I need a
pair of braces I need to hit Ctrl+F9 again?

P.S. Thanks for chipping in. Appreciate it.

"sos-DC" wrote:

Maybe the same thing I missed.

Do not type { } directly from the keyboard.
Use Ctrl+F9 to create the proper braces

"danhattan" wrote:

I appreciate the reply, but apparently don't quite understand. In
the example I posted there are 3 pairs of braces. When I compare my
syntax to Graham's there doesn't appear to be a difference except
that his False conditions prints another field whereas mine simply
prints nothing.

Again, what am I missing here?

"Peter Jamieson" wrote:

You have to use ctrl-F9 to enter /every/ pair of the special field
code braces. In this case, that's 3 pairs of the braces.

Peter Jamieson
"danhattan" wrote in message
...
Hello. I had a question similar to the original poster and have
followed this
thread to the end. It seems like I know what I'm doing but there
must be something wrong with my syntax as I'm not getting all the
results I'd expect.
My field is constructed like this:
{ IF {MERGEFIELD Spouse } "" "{ MERGEFIELD Spouse }" "" }

The idea is to print the Spouse field if there's data present,
and print nothing if data isn't present.

If there's nothing in the Spouse field, this works perfectly. The
problem is
that if there is data, rather than printing the field data, the
field result
is {MERGEFIELD Spouse}, i.e. what's literally between the
quotation marks.

My syntax looks right to my eye, but I'm clearly missing
something. Any help
you could lend would be much appreciated. Thank you.

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

The basic setup is

{IF {Mergefield Home} "" "{Mergefield Home}" "{Mergefield
Word}"}

however this assumes that the whole address is in one field. If
you have separate streets for streets, towns etc, test one of
the home fields that should always be present (such as the town)
and put all the fields that represent the addresses formatted as
you require them between the quotes.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org



sos-DC wrote:
You're right - it would help if you knew what I was trying to
achieve.

The data base is in Excel, slightly over 400 entries.

There are separate columns for HOME addresses and WORK
addresses.

Most of the entries have home addresses only, approximately 325.

The rest are WORK addresses only or both HOME and WORK addresses
provided.

What I am trying to do is create a Mail Merge document that will
print the home addresses. If the home address column is blank
it will automatically go to the work address columns.

I have created a great many additional columns (17 columns) into
which I entered a great many formulas so that I can use just one
merge document for the entire data base. (Haven't tested it
yet.)

I am hoping to find a simple way to use IF...THEN...ELSE... in
Word (MERGE) to handle the problem.

I'm comfortable with Excel but the next person to take over the
task may not be and the extra columns will definitely confuse
them.

Is it possible to use IF...THEN... ELSE... in Word (Merge) to
solve my problem.


"Graham Mayor" wrote:

The basics of mail merge are covered at
http://www.gmayor.com/mail_merge_lab...th_word_xp.htm
If you tell us exactly what you are trying to achieve, we will
tell you what is possible.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


sos-DC wrote:
I previously tried that but could not get it to work.
I did notice that the original field brackets {} hand lines
around them but the ones I entered did NOT. Could that make a
difference?

I checked the link you provided but an unable to find
anything. I'm not very good at searching the web.

"Graham Mayor" wrote:

If you are building complex conditional fields, it is better
to insert them manually using CTRL+F9 for each set of field
brackets {}. The field dialogs are too inflexible. See
http://www.gmayor.com/formatting_word_fields.htm for some
examples of field construction.

--

Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org


sos-DC wrote:
Under

Tools Letters Mail Merge Insert Word Field (in merge
tool bar) is

If...Then...Else...

This window allows for adding text under specific
circumstances.

During an online class for Mail Merge, I was shown a similar
window, but instead of inserting text, you would add
Mergefields.

The window had the first row (Field name, Comparison,
Compare to) or something similar on the succeeding rows.

I didn't realize I did not know where it is and I would
like to find it.

If this makes sense, can anyone tell me how to open this
window? I have no way of reconnecting with the instructor
for the online class.