Hi




I have a "partial" solution to compare text Form Field empty content, the trick is compare to six ? wildcards and one * wildcard:

{IF {textFormFieldName} = "??????*" "Field is not empty" "Field is empty"}

The problem is it only detect string with six characters minimum.

The behaviour is by design - each '?' represent exactly one character, but the '*' represents any number of characters. The question is why are you using such a construction to test whether a field is empty, when that should be done with code like:
Field is {IF{REF textFormFieldName}<> " " "not "}empty
A field that contains at least six characters cannot be empty...

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Easy, because:


{IF{REF textFormFieldName}<> "" "not "}


...not working. That is the origin of this thread. This trick was useful in my case.

Unless you've changed the defaults, an 'empty' text formfield will have exactly 5 spaces - it cannot have 6 or more characters. Hence, to test whether a text formfield is 'empty', you'd use:
Of course, then you have the problem of what to do if the user has simply pressed the spacebar one or more times and ended up with anything other than 5 spaces (e.g. 100) in the formfield...

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Excellent! That is most precisely.

Although this behavior is evidently a Word bug.

Thanks.

No, it is not a Word bug. Doubtless, the behaviour was originally documented - Word formfields have performed this way for decades.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]