CorelDRAW Print Merge Embedded Commas?

[Bill Jermyn]

I'm trying to do a print merge in Coreldraw X3 with some fields that contain commas. Is it possible? Is there an escape character or something?

Some entries have multiple lines. The data has fields such as:

Bob Barker (no problem of course)
Lisa, Mary and Dick Penn (how do I include such a field?)

For example, I'd like to break the second entry into 2 lines, but retain the comma. I'd like it to print as:

Lisa, Mary and Dick
Penn

[Mike Null]

Bill

Roy Brewer did a tutorial some time back on a similar subject.

http://www.engravingconcepts.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&layout=item&id=26&Itemid=67

[Bill Jermyn]

It turns out embedded commas are properly displayed and printed when using a CSV file as the merge document. I had been trying to use a TXT file, without success. Maybe it's possible, but I didn't get it to work, and Google doesn't seem to offer a solution.

Thanks for the link, Mike

[Doug Griffith]

It might work to convert the commas to unicode ( , ) prior to performing the print merge.

[Bill Jermyn]

How exactly would I do that, Doug?

[Doug Griffith]

Prior to performing the print merge, do a global search and replace for commas ( , ) in the text file. Corel should display/print the unicode as a comma during print. The same as if you were inserting foreign characters. If not, there may be a preference that enables unicode within Corel. You may also need to use Alt-44 or Alt-0130 instead of ,

[Scott Shepherd]

I had a 1200 piece job last month and used a different program to create it all, because it worked better for my application, but I had the same issues. I had a customer supplied file that was in Excel format. I made it a csv file, brought it in, and naturally, it cut off stuff after the comma. I went through the list, used a highlighter on all the "special" ones that had that, and manually fixed them once inside my graphics program.

I guess there's a way around it, but when you use the commas a field separator, commas in the names will cause some issues.

Maybe someone has a better answer, as I don't like relying on my own abilities to catch all them.

So it's not just a Corel issue, I had the same issue in an Adobe product.

[Doug Griffith]

I'd like to break the second entry into 2 lines, but retain the comma. I'd like it to print as:

Lisa, Mary and Dick
Penn

This takes a little programming, I would loop through each line of the text file and perform a small regex replace function. This is in Perl and probably too geeky for this board.

open(FH, "path_to_file/file.txt");
while(<>) {
if ($_ =~ /,/) {
($first,$last) = $_ =~ /(.+) ([a-z])$/i;
print $first."\r". $last;
} else {
print $_;
}
}
close(FH);

[Bill Jermyn]

Well you got that right... :-)

I'm thinking the task would need to be manual, since some of the commas need to be printed and some need to remain as delimiters. But replacing the commas that are to be printed by Alt-0130 works!!! Thanks.

For reference - to be more specific (when using a txt merge file):

1. Open the merge file in Notepad
2. highlight a comma you would like to be printed and not used as a delimiter
3. Hold down the Alt key while keying 0130 (using the number keys above the letters or on the numeric keypad)
4. Release the Alt key
4. Rinse & repeat
5. Save the file
6. Do the print merge