Removing MergeFielld from labels when the data is NULL

[wpatterson]

I’m trying to produce mailing labels from a database that has both address1 and address2 fields. The problem I am having is that if address2 is NULL (verified from the data) then a blank line appears in the output document. This is the code we are using and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Bill

// Remove Empty Paragraphs
doc.MailMerge.RemoveEmptyParagraphs = true;
// Do the mail merge from the DataVeiew to the document
doc.MailMerge.Execute(dv.ToTable());
// Remove Next_Field when document from empty records
ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
NodeCollection collection = doc.GetChildNodes(NodeType.FieldStart, true);
foreach (FieldStart start in collection)
{
    if (start.FieldType == FieldType.FieldNext || start.FieldType == FieldType.FieldMergeField)
    {
        list.Add(start);
    }
}
foreach (Node start in list)
{
    Node node = start;
    while (node.NodeType != NodeType.FieldEnd)
    {
        node = node.NextSibling;
        node.PreviousSibling.Remove();
    }
    node.Remove();
}
// Strip out merged fields with no data
int i;
string[] names = doc.MailMerge.GetFieldNames();
DocumentBuilder builder = new DocumentBuilder(doc);
for (i = 1; i < names.Length; i++)
{
    builder.MoveToMergeField(names[i]);
}
// Save the mail merge document as Out.doc
doc.Save(MyPath + @"\Out.doc");
HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/ms-word";
HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline;filename=Out.doc");
HttpContext.Current.Response.TransmitFile("Out.doc");

[alexey.noskov]

Hi
Thanks for your request. The following code should work for you.

// Remove Empty Paragraphs
doc.MailMerge.RemoveEmptyParagraphs = true;
// Do the mail merge from the DataVeiew to the document
doc.MailMerge.Execute(dv.ToTable());
// Delete not merged fields
doc.MailMerge.DeleteFields();

Could you also please attach your template and output document for investigating?
Best regards.

[wpatterson]

Thank you for responding!
I tried that and it didn’t work. I still get blank lines in the output labels.
Please see the template attached. I can’t seem to attach more than one file.
Thanks!

Document doc = new Document(stream);
string MyPath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(".");

// Create a DataView via the data source using Program and Term
DataView dv = (DataView dsrcStudentAddresses.Select(DataSourceSelectArguments.Empty);

try
{
    // Remove Empty Paragraphs
    doc.MailMerge.RemoveEmptyParagraphs = true;

    // Do the mail merge from the DataVeiew to the document
    doc.MailMerge.Execute(dv.ToTable());
    // Delete not merged fields
    doc.MailMerge.DeleteFields();
    // Remove Next_Field when document from empty records
    ArrayList list = new ArrayList();
    NodeCollection collection = doc.GetChildNodes(NodeType.FieldStart, true);
    foreach (FieldStart start in collection)
    {
        if (start.FieldType == FieldType.FieldNext || start.FieldType == FieldType.FieldMergeField)
        {
            list.Add(start);
        }
    }
    foreach (Node start in list)
    {
        Node node = start;
        while (node.NodeType != NodeType.FieldEnd)
        {
            node = node.NextSibling;
            node.PreviousSibling.Remove();
        }
        node.Remove();
    }
    // Strip out merged fields with no data
    int i;
    string[] names = doc.MailMerge.GetFieldNames();
    DocumentBuilder builder = new DocumentBuilder(doc);
    for (i = 1; i < names.Length; i++)
    {
        builder.MoveToMergeField(names[i]);
    }
    // Save the mail merge document as Out.doc
    doc.Save(MyPath + @"\Out.doc");
    HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/ms-word";
    HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "inline;filename=Out.doc");
    HttpContext.Current.Response.TransmitFile("Out.doc");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    lblErrors.Text = ex.Message;
}
dv = null;
doc = null;
stream = null;
ioStream = null;

[alexey.noskov]

Hi
Thanks for additional information. RemoveEmptyParagraphs doesn’t work in your case because line with mergefield “Address2” also contains few white characters. So paragraph is not empty. I changed your template and now all works fine. Please see the following code and the attached documents.

string[] names = { "FirstName", "LastName", "Address1", "Address2", "City", "State", "Zip" };
// Address2 line will be removed
object[] values = { "Alexey", "Noskov", "My addres", null, "City", "State", "Zip" };
// Open template
Document doc = new Document(@"Test206\in.doc");
doc.MailMerge.RemoveEmptyParagraphs = true;
// Execute mail merge
doc.MailMerge.Execute(names, values);
// Save document
doc.Save(@"Test206\out.doc");

Hope this helps
Best regards.

[wpatterson]

Thanks so very much! That solved the problem.
I had been trying unsuccessfully to add {IF…} syntax to skip the field if it was “” and I must have left behind a few white space spaces.
It works like a charm now!
Thanks again,
Bill