I haven't used Filemaker since the late eighties, I think Claris made it then. So the other day, a client mentioned that they wanted to create shipping labels based on their inventory and mentioned that they had filemaker pro (6). I say great, I'm familar with Filemaker and it should be easy enough to do...heh. Import the acsii file and go....

Turns out that it isn't so simple. Basically, there are 24 "potential" fields, depending on which color is to be printed; which is tied to the quantity selected. Only the listed color and amounts are to be printed, the remainer should be ignored....

Example:
Red-----Blue----- Green-----Yellow----Black-----Pink,
"comma"- 2---"comma" --- 2---"comma"----"comma"

I want to end with 2 blue and 2 yellow labels, based on the information in the ascii file.

I am stumped, would appreciate where in the user guide I might find out how to do this or is FileMaker not the best program for this type of work?

Any hints or suggestions are welcomed...thanks in advance

I imagine you'd import all the fields and then create some cals that look to see which fields are empty: the calcs would be the field's printed.

Then again, I really had a hard time understanding your context from the description provided. Perhaps you can post some more details.

Thanks for the prompt response, I'll try to be clearer.

They make shirts. They want to create labels based on the quantity and colors they acutally produce. They are able to generate an ascii file from their production line.

My problem is, is that all the colors and quantities are in one file; when a color is not being produced in a quantity, it is left blank.

So it looks line this:,,,,,,,,3,,,,,4,,,,1.

The numerial value indicates the quantity in that color. Each number represents a different quantity of a DIFFERENT color of that SAME style. So you are supposed to end with 3 blue, 4 green and 1 yellow label of style a. The "comma" represents a color/label not being produced for that style or ZERO quantity.

However a different style would look like this:1,,,,,3,,,,,,3,,,,,4,,,,. The amount of colors are constant, only the quantity changes, according to style.

I hope that makes a bit more sense. I'm sure it's not as complicated as I'm making it out to be.[/list]

If you could give us the actual oupput file, pasted in the post that may help, but I'll try to see what insight we can offer.

I think John's initial solution is still the one you want. You would import the text file, then create 24 calculations that represent each color's quantity. Each calculation would be the text between the two commas that represent that colors number range.

If that is not clear, try putting an actual data sample up, a few lines of one at least, and I can whip up some calculations for you.

Sure it looks like:

Style Color Size Blue, Green, Yellow, etc....

63100, Navy, MED, ,,,,,,3,,,,,,1,,,,,,22,,,
63110, Black, MED, ,,10,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


Again, thanks for the help.
holmes

Sorry it looks like this:

Style Color Width Size: 5,51/2,6,61/2,7,71/2,8,81/2,9,91/2,10,101/2,11,111/2, 12, 121/2, 13

The above description ISN'T included in the acsii file, but on a printout. The acutall ascii file is below.

63100, Navy, MED, ,,,,,,3,,,,,,1,,,,,,22,,,
63110, Black, MED, ,,10,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


Again, thanks for the help.
holmes