Hold Text Formatting

Support, Tips and Tricks for Proof Group's fmSpark "merge anything" utility for FileMaker Pro.
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:23 am
PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:08 pm
John,
I'm trying to work my way through fmSpark. I've created a new template with text formatted as Times New Roman. Each time I try a merge it sets the type to Lucinda Grande. It holds the bold and color, but loses the Font each time. It seems to be during the merge because if I look at the template in Settings -> Templates -> Generate Preview, it formats correctly.
thanks!
John Swart
SeedCode Staff
SeedCode Staff
Posts: 2764
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:01 am
PostPosted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:27 pm
Hey John,

I'm not sure what's happening here as I get formatting (font and color) holding all the way from template, to composing the mail, to merging (and reviewing the merge) to printing. Can you email me (john at seedcode.com) some screen shots of what you're seeing?

Best,

John
John Sindelar
SeedCode
Posts: 15
Joined: Thu Mar 06, 2008 6:23 am
PostPosted: Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:37 am
Hey John,
Kinda what I figured, some font thing on my side it seems. If I create a new letter from the blank template the fonts hold. I'll try to recreate the merged letter I'm working on from scratch and see what happens. My first suspicion is Office 2008 which installed fonts willy-nilly in the system and gave me a bunch of dupes.
Thanks for the quick reply. I'll let you know what I find out. and if I still have problems will send you screen shots.
John
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:49 am
PostPosted: Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:15 am
Regarding formatting, can the document hold more formatting than just type specs? Font and color are both useful, what about more word-processing-like formatting, such as tabs, indents, justification and alignment?

Thanks!
SeedCode Staff
SeedCode Staff
Posts: 2764
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:01 am
PostPosted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:12 am
It sure will. fmSpark letter templates preserve Alignment, Justification, Line Spacing, Tabs and text ruler manipulations in addition to fonts, styles, and colors. I'd encourage you to try this out in the demo.
John Sindelar
SeedCode
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:04 pm
Location: Minneapolis, MN
PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 5:12 pm
I'm getting a similar situation. I've selected a custom font on the letter template. When I preview it the fonts appear to be somewhat random. It's interesting that if I preview from the fmSpark main screen it looks fine. When I'm actually creating a letter and preview, it's messed up. Any ideas?
SeedCode Staff
SeedCode Staff
Posts: 2764
Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:01 am
PostPosted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 12:07 pm
Hey Tim,

We're not completely sure what is causing this, but a change to one of the custom functions seems to solve it. If you're using FileMaker advanced, replace the definition of the function "MergeExpressions" with this:

Code: Select all
If( IsEmpty( text ) ; "" ;

  Let( [
    S = "<<" ;
    E = ">>";
    start = Position( text; S; 1; 1 );
    end = Position( text; E; start; 1 ) ];

    If( start = 0 or end = 0; text;

      Let( contents = Middle( text; start + Length( S ); end - start - Length( S ) );
        If( IsValidExpression ( contents );
          Left( text; start - 1 )
            & Replace( Middle( text; start; 1 ); 1; 1; "" & Evaluate( contents ) )
            & MergeExpressions( Right( text; Length( text ) - end - Length( E ) + 1 ) );
          Left( text; start + Length( S ) - 1 )
            & MergeExpressions( Right( text; Length( text ) - start - Length( S ) + 1 ) ) ) ) ) ) )


If you don't have advanced, email me a copy of your fmSpark.fp7 file and I'll make the change and send it right back.
John Sindelar
SeedCode

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