Doing Mail Merge in Panorama X

Panorama X
1

I’m new to this forum, so please excuse any faux pas. I am currently trying to work my way through a new computer (iMac 2022), and new OS (Monterey), and converting from Panorama 6 to Panorama X. Most things moved to Panorama X without a problem, so only a few procedure changes were needed. I have a couple of questions that I hope the experienced users can help me with.

  • I have a database with many of the field name starting with an '(single quote), such as '22Sent. These worked well in Panorama 6, but when I try to use them in Panorama X, even with the chevrons around them, they give me a formula error, where other field names do not in the same procedure. I would like to change the name of the fields, but I don’t know if the name change will migrate to all my procedures where the field is used. Can someone direct me to the answer?
  • Apple’s word processor (Pages) no longer does Mail Merge. Is there any tutorials about using Panorama X to create a Mail Merge document?

Thanks for any help

2

Mail merge can be done in Pan X with a Text Display Object. Check that out in the help.

Someone else can give you better advice than I can about your other question; but if you change the field names, you will have to change them everywhere they occur. You will be able to find the procedures and forms that use the offending field names using View>View Search. On the other hand there may be a trick I don’t know that will allow you to use the field names as they are.

3

Changing the name of a field will not ‘flow’ to any other forms or procedures.

As for mail merge… If you are using Mail, ensure that you have the desired email account selected in the sidebar of Mail. In Panorama Preferences, use the Channels tab to set Email = ‘Apple Mail’. Select the group of records that you want to send to in the DataSheet.

Local LEmailBody
FirstRecord
Loop
LEmailBody = "This is the body text for sending to " + «FirstName» + ". Your last name is " +«LastName» + "."
SendEmail {FromName="YourFromNameHere" 
To=}+«EmailAddressFieldName»+{
subject="This will be your subject"
smtp="smtpServerNameHere"
ChannelResult="Yes"
},LEmailBody
DownRecord
Until Info("Stopped")
4

I am not trying to send emails, but a letter to go out to various people in my database. I want to create a form the size of print page, enter the common text with data fields imbedded to provide the data that is individualized to the person. Panorama 6 had a wizard to create such a form.

5

Check out formulamerge in the help file. I believe that will point you in the right direction.

6

Thanks for the reply. I searched in the help menu and in the tutorial, but got NO RESULTS FOUND. How do I get to the help file?

7

Maybe you have to set the search categories to “All” first.
Bildschirmfoto 2022-03-15 um 21.39.39

Here is the topic:

8

Thanks for letting me know that changing the name of a field will not flow to any other forms or procedures.

1 Like
9

I don’t think formulamerge is what @Curly needs. For the body of your letter, I think you want to use a Text Display Object in Literal mode.

In this mode you can substitute fields into the text using the « and » characters. This would allow you to plug in the name, address, etc.

image
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If you want to use different styles, fonts, etc. in your letter you can enable the Rich Text mode.

With this mode enabled you can add tags to the text to choose the style you want.

image
image2424×2052 452 KB

To create a letter, you’ll want to make a report tile that is the size of the printed page, like this:

image
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This page is from the Tiles in Action help page.

You’ll also want to study these help pages:

10

Thanks so much for the detailed advice. I’ll give it a try.

11

Using your helpful instructions, I’ve been able to create a Mail Merge document. In trouble shooting the documents created, I’ve been using “Preview” and “Preview One Record” which opens the created document in Apple’s Preview. My question now is whether I can edit the file in Preview. It seems that it needs a password to allow editing the text in the Preview document. Does Panorama X create a locked document? If so is there a way to get around it?
Thanks for any help.

12

The document that opens in Preview is a PDF, not a text or word processor document. Preview has an annotation feature that you can use to add things to the document, but it doesn’t edit the existing text.

13

Thanks for the info.