make a merge field go to next merge field if prior one is blank?

[M. Funn]

I have a word document that I am merging with an excel spreadsheet. In the
word document there are three choices for the recipient i woudl like the
merge to go to the next choice if the first one is blank and so on. I have
tried to use the "If then else" field but I am a beginner and have not had
luck with this.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Assuming that what you mean is that your Spreadsheet has 3 columns, and in
each row, one, two or perhaps even all three of those columns could be blank
/and/ it is OK simply to start checking with the first column and move to
the next as you say, what you need is something like

{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD column1 }" <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD column1 }"
"{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD column2 }" <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD column2 }"
"{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD column3 }" <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD column3 }"
"some other value if all three are blank?" }" }" }

This can all be on one line, but all the {} need to be the special field
braces that you can insert using ctrl-F9 - you can't just type them on the
keyboard. Everything else is plain text. I include the spaces and quotes
partly because that's the way Word usually does it, and partly as a
defensive programming strategy, but many people would drop quite a few of
them.

 

[M. Funn]

Thank you I will try this.

Assuming that what you mean is that your Spreadsheet has 3 columns, and in
each row, one, two or perhaps even all three of those columns could be blank
/and/ it is OK simply to start checking with the first column and move to
the next as you say, what you need is something like

{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD column1 }" <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD column1 }"
"{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD column2 }" <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD column2 }"
"{ IF "{ MERGEFIELD column3 }" <> "" "{ MERGEFIELD column3 }"
"some other value if all three are blank?" }" }" }

This can all be on one line, but all the {} need to be the special field
braces that you can insert using ctrl-F9 - you can't just type them on the
keyboard. Everything else is plain text. I include the spaces and quotes
partly because that's the way Word usually does it, and partly as a
defensive programming strategy, but many people would drop quite a few of
them.