[Pearl]

My data source contains codes e.g.3,4,5,14,16 that I want to change for text
in my merged documents. First, how do I enter the multiple If statements? I
think that I can write the nested If but don't know how to actually enter it
in my document. I'm using Word 2000. Also how many nested Ifs will Word
accept?

[Ed]

Hi Pearl,

Not sure how many levels of nesting you can have.

An easy way to create many types of fields is just to type them into your
document. Don't use the curly bracket keys on the keyboard to insert the
field braces; instead use Ctrl+F9 to insert a pair of them. If you use
Ctrl+F9 and don't see anything, press Alt+F9 to toggle field codes view on.

If you're testing codes that are mutually exclusive you can often get away
without having to nest the IF fields at all; just create them as un-nested
and ensure that they are all on the same line. It's less elegant than nesting
but should work (provided the codes cover all of the possibilities).

The tricky part about nesting fields tends to be getting the structure
right. Once you've nested to a few levels it can become hard to see the wood
for the trees.

However, if you are essentially nesting the same type of test over and over
then one way to make it easy to get the structure right is to do the job in
two stages. In stage one you create the nesting structure and in stage two
you supply the values for the tests and results.

If you want to replace codes with text (e.g. "IF code is "3" then insert
"Text for 3" ELSE IF code is "4" THEN insert "Text for 4" etc.) you can do it
as follows.

First create the basic test.

(Press Ctrl+F9 to get the field braces for the IF field, type IF followed by
a space, press Ctrl+F9 again to get the field braces for the merge field and
inside these braces type MERGEFIELD "code" (or whatever), then complete the
IF field so that it looks something like the one below.)

{ IF { MERGEFIELD "code" } = "3" "Text for 3" "" }

In this field, "Text for 3" is the TrueText (what you want displayed if the
test evaluates to true) and "" is the FalseText (what you want displayed if
the test evaluates to false).

You can simulate an AND type of test by nesting into an IF field's TrueText
and you can simulate an OR test by nesting into the FalseText.

In this case, if I understand your requirement, I am going to repeatedly
nest into the FalseText part of my fields (the final set of quotation marks)
so I have left that part empty for now.

To create the first level of nesting I copy the basic field (making sure I
don't copy any trailing space or paragraph mark) and paste it into the
relevant FalseText to get

{ IF { MERGEFIELD "code" } = "3" "Text for 3" "{ IF { MERGEFIELD "code" } =
"3" "Text for 3" "" }" }

I then paste it again into the (sole) set of empty quotation marks to
produce the next level of nesting.

I repeat the paste for as many levels of nesting as are required - each time
just pasting into the empty quotation marks - no need to worry about the
growing forest of quotation marks and curly brackets..

Once I've got all of the levels that I want I just go from the top and
replace "3" with "4", "5" etc. as appropriate and amend each of the final
TrueTexts to whatever it is I want to be displayed. Just having to paste the
same thing into (in
this case) the FalseText for as many levels of nesting as I want makes it
very easy to get the nesting right. Once the nesting is right I can easily
make the required substitutions.

Depending on the circumstances I might also amend the final FalseText to be
other than "".

Hope this makes sense :-)

Regards.

Ed


"Pearl" wrote:

My data source contains codes e.g.3,4,5,14,16 that I want to change for text
in my merged documents. First, how do I enter the multiple If statements? I
think that I can write the nested If but don't know how to actually enter it
in my document. I'm using Word 2000. Also how many nested Ifs will Word
accept?

[Pearl]

Thanks Ed that sounds quite a comprehensive reply to my query. I'll give it a
whorl tomorrow and let you know how I get on. My main problem was in how I
actually got to insert the nested Ifs - using the insert word field didn't
seem to do anything. The tip about Ctrl+F9 ans Alt+F9 is useful as I wasn't
getting anything using Ctrl+F9. Will contact you tomorrow with my results.

"Ed" wrote:

Hi Pearl,

Not sure how many levels of nesting you can have.

An easy way to create many types of fields is just to type them into your
document. Don't use the curly bracket keys on the keyboard to insert the
field braces; instead use Ctrl+F9 to insert a pair of them. If you use
Ctrl+F9 and don't see anything, press Alt+F9 to toggle field codes view on.

If you're testing codes that are mutually exclusive you can often get away
without having to nest the IF fields at all; just create them as un-nested
and ensure that they are all on the same line. It's less elegant than nesting
but should work (provided the codes cover all of the possibilities).

The tricky part about nesting fields tends to be getting the structure
right. Once you've nested to a few levels it can become hard to see the wood
for the trees.

However, if you are essentially nesting the same type of test over and over
then one way to make it easy to get the structure right is to do the job in
two stages. In stage one you create the nesting structure and in stage two
you supply the values for the tests and results.

If you want to replace codes with text (e.g. "IF code is "3" then insert
"Text for 3" ELSE IF code is "4" THEN insert "Text for 4" etc.) you can do it
as follows.

First create the basic test.

(Press Ctrl+F9 to get the field braces for the IF field, type IF followed by
a space, press Ctrl+F9 again to get the field braces for the merge field and
inside these braces type MERGEFIELD "code" (or whatever), then complete the
IF field so that it looks something like the one below.)

{ IF { MERGEFIELD "code" } = "3" "Text for 3" "" }

In this field, "Text for 3" is the TrueText (what you want displayed if the
test evaluates to true) and "" is the FalseText (what you want displayed if
the test evaluates to false).

You can simulate an AND type of test by nesting into an IF field's TrueText
and you can simulate an OR test by nesting into the FalseText.

In this case, if I understand your requirement, I am going to repeatedly
nest into the FalseText part of my fields (the final set of quotation marks)
so I have left that part empty for now.

To create the first level of nesting I copy the basic field (making sure I
don't copy any trailing space or paragraph mark) and paste it into the
relevant FalseText to get

{ IF { MERGEFIELD "code" } = "3" "Text for 3" "{ IF { MERGEFIELD "code" } =
"3" "Text for 3" "" }" }

I then paste it again into the (sole) set of empty quotation marks to
produce the next level of nesting.

I repeat the paste for as many levels of nesting as are required - each time
just pasting into the empty quotation marks - no need to worry about the
growing forest of quotation marks and curly brackets..

Once I've got all of the levels that I want I just go from the top and
replace "3" with "4", "5" etc. as appropriate and amend each of the final
TrueTexts to whatever it is I want to be displayed. Just having to paste the
same thing into (in
this case) the FalseText for as many levels of nesting as I want makes it
very easy to get the nesting right. Once the nesting is right I can easily
make the required substitutions.

Depending on the circumstances I might also amend the final FalseText to be
other than "".

Hope this makes sense :-)

Regards.

Ed


"Pearl" wrote:

My data source contains codes e.g.3,4,5,14,16 that I want to change for text
in my merged documents. First, how do I enter the multiple If statements? I
think that I can write the nested If but don't know how to actually enter it
in my document. I'm using Word 2000. Also how many nested Ifs will Word
accept?

[Peter]

Hi Ed,

I came across this post in a search regarding this type of merge. I tried
your advice and it worked. Thanks for all the information you've given.

I do have a question regarding the final merge output however. I noticed
that "do not print blank lines" seems to be ignored when merging the document
to a printer or even a pdf driver. If I merge to New Document , then the
blank lines do not appear. Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Peter

[Ed]

Hi Peter,

Don't think I can be of any help with this one :-(

I found one thread in the NG which seems similar:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/mic...9b11bc e3dc98

There, the problem seemed to be a possible font oddity.

I suppose you could try different fonts and see what happens.

I tried a test here with non-nested fields in Word 97, 2003 and 2007 and in
each case the blank lines were suppressed.

Answers to some of the following might spark a solution from someone in the
NGs.

What version of Word are you using?

Are the merge fields "free-standing" or are they embedded in other fields
(such as IF fields)? I ask because when Microsoft produced Word 2002 they
re-wrote the merge part and one of the changes was that there were some
circumstances where blank lines would no longer be suppressed automatically
(even when merging to a new document) and one of the circumstances was when
merge fields were inside IF fields. There are a couple of ways to work around
that particular problem.

If you turn on the display of formatting marks does anything unusual show up?

Does the problem happen with one mail merge main document or with all of them?

If you have access to a different printer does the problem happen when you
merge to that? (Seems likely if you also get the problem merging to PDF.)

If you copy everything from you mail merge main document except the last
paragraph mark into a new document and try the merge with that one do you
still get the problem?

If your mail merge main document is based on normal.dot, what happens if you
bypass normal.dot, create a new test document and merge that to the printer?
(To bypass normal.dot, start Word by clicking Start/Run and typing "winword
/a" (without the quotes) in the Run dialog. This will also stop any addins or
global templates loading.)

I've asked a bunch of questions and unfortunately I won't be around for the
rest of today to see the answers as I'm just about to leave the building, but
maybe somebody else will

Regards and good luck!.

Ed

"Peter" wrote:

Hi Ed,

I came across this post in a search regarding this type of merge. I tried
your advice and it worked. Thanks for all the information you've given.

I do have a question regarding the final merge output however. I noticed
that "do not print blank lines" seems to be ignored when merging the document
to a printer or even a pdf driver. If I merge to New Document , then the
blank lines do not appear. Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Peter

[Peter]

Thanks again Ed.

Really appreciate all your advice!

I am using Ver 2000.

I have tried various things you have mentioned, but no luck. The code I have
I initially set with information from Microsoft, combined with your initial
suggestions. I have a link to a screen shot I took of the code I am using. I
did try keying in the code as you showed Pearl but the documents would not
come up. The code in the link gives me the documents, just will not supress
blank lines unless I merge to a new document.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1177710767

Thanks again . . .

Peter

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

I don't know if it will make any difference, but the opening quote mark in
front of the true result in each If...then...Else construction should not be
there.

That is

{ IF { MERGEFIELD ALERT } = GEN "{ INCLUDETEXT etc

should only be

{ IF { MERGEFIELD ALERT } = GEN { INCLUDETEXT etc

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"Peter" wrote in message
...
Thanks again Ed.

Really appreciate all your advice!

I am using Ver 2000.

I have tried various things you have mentioned, but no luck. The code I
have
I initially set with information from Microsoft, combined with your
initial
suggestions. I have a link to a screen shot I took of the code I am using.
I
did try keying in the code as you showed Pearl but the documents would not
come up. The code in the link gives me the documents, just will not
supress
blank lines unless I merge to a new document.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1177710767

Thanks again . . .

Peter

[Peter Jamieson]

FYI blank line suppression does not work with fields nested in other fields
(such as INCLUDETEXT, IF) in Word 2002/2003. Or at least some versions of
it. Although I think it did work with Word 2000,
a. I probably mostly merged to new documents, not the printer
b. various aspects of field behaviour have been changed with service packs
and security updates in Word 2000. This /could/ be one of them. If so, it
could be that the only way you will get these fields to function correctly
is to use the other, more complex technique of inserting blank lines when
the fields are not empty, e.g.

{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD myfield1 }" = ""
"" "{ MERGEFIELD myfield1 }
" }{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD myfield2 }" = ""
"" "{ MERGEFIELD myfield2 }
" }

I'm not sure I can get at my Word 2000 system right now but when I can I'll
take a look. Which Word SR/SP are you using?

Peter Jamieson

"Peter" wrote in message
...
Thanks again Ed.

Really appreciate all your advice!

I am using Ver 2000.

I have tried various things you have mentioned, but no luck. The code I
have
I initially set with information from Microsoft, combined with your
initial
suggestions. I have a link to a screen shot I took of the code I am using.
I
did try keying in the code as you showed Pearl but the documents would not
come up. The code in the link gives me the documents, just will not
supress
blank lines unless I merge to a new document.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1177710767

Thanks again . . .

Peter

[Ed]

Hi Peter,

I can't actually see your example as our company firewall (or whatever)
blocks access to lots of sites.

But I see that Peter J is on the case so it doesn't matter anyway

Regards.

Ed

"Peter" wrote:

Thanks again Ed.

Really appreciate all your advice!

I am using Ver 2000.

I have tried various things you have mentioned, but no luck. The code I have
I initially set with information from Microsoft, combined with your initial
suggestions. I have a link to a screen shot I took of the code I am using. I
did try keying in the code as you showed Pearl but the documents would not
come up. The code in the link gives me the documents, just will not supress
blank lines unless I merge to a new document.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...g?t=1177710767

Thanks again . . .

Peter

[WordBanter AI]

To use multiple IF statements in a mail merge document in Word 2000, you can use the following steps:

1. Open your mail merge document and click on the "Mailings" tab in the ribbon.
2. Click on "Rules" and select "If...Then...Else" from the drop-down menu.
3. In the "If...Then...Else" dialog box, enter your first IF statement in the "Insert this field" box. For example, if you want to change code 3 to "Text A", you would enter the following:
   PHP Code:

   IF {MERGEFIELD Code} = 3 "Text A" 

4. Click on "Add" to add another IF statement. Enter your second IF statement in the "Insert this field" box. For example, if you want to change code 4 to "Text B", you would enter the following:
   PHP Code:

   IF {MERGEFIELD Code} = 4 "Text B" 

5. Repeat step 4 for each additional IF statement you want to add.
6. Click on "OK" to close the "If...Then...Else" dialog box.

To use the nested IF statement, you can use the following steps:

1. Open your mail merge document and click on the "Mailings" tab in the ribbon.
2. Click on "Rules" and select "If...Then...Else" from the drop-down menu.
3. In the "If...Then...Else" dialog box, enter your first IF statement in the "Insert this field" box. For example, if you want to change code 3 to "Text A", you would enter the following:
   PHP Code:

   IF {MERGEFIELD Code} = 3 "Text A" 

4. Click on "Add" to add another IF statement. Enter your second IF statement in the "Insert this field" box. For example, if you want to change code 4 to "Text B", you would enter the following:
   PHP Code:

   IF {MERGEFIELD Code} = 4 "Text B" 

5. In the "Insert this field" box for the "Else" statement, enter another IF statement. For example, if you want to change code 5 to "Text C", you would enter the following:
   PHP Code:

   IF {MERGEFIELD Code} = 5 "Text C" 

6. Repeat step 5 for each additional nested IF statement you want to add.
7. Click on "OK" to close the "If...Then...Else" dialog box.

Word will accept up to seven nested IF statements. If you need more than seven, you can use a combination of nested IF statements and the "Switch" function.