About data documents, Creating a data document – Nisus Writer Pro User Manual
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Polishing & Managing Documents
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Figure 389
The “Other…” Merge Placeholder dialog
3. Click Insert.
!
If you use a placeholder from something other than the Address Book you would need to create a
separate data document as explained in “About data documents” below.
This is your template document. The next step for you is to set up your data document.
About data documents
Here are some guidelines for creating data documents. Data documents are simply CSV, or Comma-
separated values files. You can learn more about them here:
•
Enter the field names on the first line (paragraph) of the data document.
•
Enter the data field, the replacement text, in the same order as the field names to which they
refer in the first line (paragraph).
•
You do not have to use brackets at all in data files.
•
Separate each field name and data field with a comma.
•
To include a comma in a field itself (for example, a date), enclose the whole field in straight
quotes.
!
Nisus Writer Pro sees a comma as separating two fields. So if you put in December 25,1800 It
would be seen as two fields, Dec 25 and 1800. So, if you want it to have a comma, type it in
straight quotes as "December 25, 1800".
•
To include quotes in a data document the following rule must be followed.
•
To include a straight double quote in a field value, you actually double-up the quote; you
must enclose the entire value in straight double quote marks.
!
In order to get the result:
Arthur Herbert "the Fonz" Fonzarelli
using the Merge Placeholders
«First Name»
«Last Name»
you need to have the
following in the data document:
"Arthur Herbert "the Fonz"",Fonzarelli
Creating a data document
1. Open a new, untitled file.
2. On the first paragraph of the file, type in the field names that you will be addressing in the file.
For the case in our example, you would type in:
First Name, Last Name, Organization,Department,Address (street),Address
(city),Address (state),Address (zip),feature
!
Leading and trailing spaces between the commas are ignored.
!
The sequence of the fields in the data document does not need to match their sequence in the
template document (one field might be used multiple times).
3. On all subsequent lines of the file, enter the information for each unique letter in the same
order as the field names on the top line. Remember to use a comma to separate each data field.
4. Choose the menu command File > Save As….
5. Give the file a name that fits your project.
6. Choose Text from the File Format pop-up menu.