I've got an excel spreadsheet with about 2000 different records on them with one column to be used for the variable data. The thing I was trying to figure out is there a way to repeat a given record a certain number of times. The way the spreadsheet is set up, they have a facility number that needs to be printed say 36 times, the number of copies is a separate column. The next facility might only need 1 copy, the one after that 153. I could go into the spreadsheet and copy and paste the info down the given number of times, however for 2000 different records that's going to take a lot of time. Wanted to see if there was a better way of doing it with expressions maybe so that info in Column A could be repeated a number of times according to info in Column B.

if you go to the "Layouts" tab and select the layout that needs to be repeated, then in the "properties" tab you will find a "number of copies" entry.

The default value is "1". When you click on that, you can set an expression, to link it to the database. The data needs to be a number, so if the database field is a string, you could use:

VAL([databasefield])

Unless I'm misunderstanding the way that'll work, I don't think that'll do what I need. I have a PDF letter as the layout. That will be the same for all 2000 records. There is a variable called facility number that will be inserted into that layout, for instance facility 119. There is another variable called Need English, which gives the number of copies that need to be printed for that one facility. So if I set the number of copies to 36 (which is how many 119 needs), then won't it do 36 copies of each facility? Basically variable b (Number English) determines how many copies of variable a (facility number) I need to print.

DaVita,

The number of copies for each individual layouts can be variable, and is specific to a single record. So if on record 1, the number of copies is 36, it will print 36 copies of the first record. On the next record, if the number of copies is 9, it will print 9 copies, not 36.

I believe it may be easier to explain if we could discuss the issue on the phone, and maybe connect to your machine. Therefore, I suggest you open a technical support issue. You can call 1-866-348-5863 and request technical support. Once you get an issue number, one of our technicians will assist you.

Regards,
Rapha