PSTextMerge Troubleshooting

Following is a list of suggestions to consider if you are not getting the results that you want from PSTextMerge.

1. Commands must be on separate lines.

Remember that template commands are different from variables, and that PSTextMerge commands (output, nextrec, loop, etc.) must always be on a line to themselves, with a line break before the start of the command and after the end of the command. See the Template section of the operating guide for more info.

2. Use quotation marks around command parameters.

Make sure that template command parameters, including variables, are enclosed in quotation marks, to ensure that they are parsed correctly. See the Template section of the operating guide for more info.

3. Look at the log.

Go to the logging tab and look for any messages that might indicate what is going wrong. Change the default logging parameters to show more detail (Normal will show the most). See the Log section of the operating guide for more info.

4. Remove stray carriage returns and tabs from input data.

Some database and spreadsheet programs will allow you to embed carriage returns and/or tabs within fields of a database, or cells of a spreadsheet. When saving a file in tab-delimited text format, however, these characters can cause problems. Subsequent programs trying to read these files, such as PSTextMerge, can misinterpret these characters, causing fields and entire records to be terminated prematurely, with subsequent data mistakenly showing up in the next column of the same record, or the first column of the next record. As an alternative to using these characters, consider embedding equivalent HTML tags. For example, "<BR>" can be used to cause a line break in HTML. HTML tags will not help the display of the data within the source program, but will cause the data to display as desired when using the data to generate Web pages.

5. Use saved values in IFENDGROUP and IFENDLIST blocks.

References to record variables in IFENDGROUP blocks will access the record that caused the break (the first record in the new group), not the last record in the group that is ending. If you need to access record data from the group just ended, then you will need to save that data in global variables using SET commands, from your normal record processing block, and then reference the global variables in the IFENDGROUP block.

6. Be aware of memory limitations.

If the number of records you are processing is over 1,000, you may well run into memory exceptions. PSTextMerge is not currently designed to handle large data volumes.

http://www.powersurgepub.com/ | trouble.html | Revised: 6/15/08