Troubleshooting Forms

2 minutes
12 months ago

Troubleshooting Forms

If you find that your form templates are not appearing correctly or are throwing error messages, refer to the following troubleshooting table:

Issue

Resolution

A field is not populating with data and/or appears with the guillemets when rendered.

The field is not properly enclosed by a corresponding «NFSectionStart»«NFSectionEnd» or «NFOptionalStart»«NFOptionalEnd». Check to make sure it’s properly enclosed. Some fields are double nested (i.e. inside of two Section Start/End).

A table within the document is appearing with all the cells aligned in an equidistant grid instead of respecting the unique spacing as designed.

The table is set to Automatically Resize Contents. See page 8 for how to correct this.

 

There is an extra line break or white space after each record in a section.

Check for the existence of a line break by Showing Paragraph Marks (CTRL-SHIFT-8). If a  symbol appears at the location where the extra line break or white space is, delete it.

Newforma is reporting that “The number of NFSectionStart tags does not match the number of NFSectionEnd Tags.”

Check your template for a lone NFSectionStart and either remove it or add the correct corresponding NFSectionEnd tag.

A field with data is appearing in a location where you already deleted it.

Occasionally, fields will “hide” themselves. Press ALT-F9 to show all mergefields. This view will reveal any mergefields not visible in normal view. Highlight and remove the offending mergefield, which will look like this:

Newforma is reporting that “Mail merge regions overlap. Two regions cannot start/end in the same paragraph or occupy the same table row.”

NFSectionStart/End, NFOptionalStart/End, and NFField tags for the same section should not be duplicated in a paragraph or table row, or an error will result. For example, the following would result in an error:

This document was generated by «NFField:Newforma:application» – ««NFField:Newforma:version»

The correct way to generate the desired result would be:

«NFSectionStart:Newforma»This document was generated by «application» – «version»«NFSectionEnd:Newforma»

 A field name is being cut off.

Microsoft Word will only display the first 45 characters of a merge field name. To view the entire field, right click on the field and select Edit Field.