U.M. (Mac OS)

Laying out and arranging information 3-59
1 Merge fields display as much text as fits in the boundary of the
defined field. You can adjust the size of the field to display as much
data as you want.
1 You format merge fields the same way you format other
FileMaker Pro fields. To assign formats to values in a merge field,
select the merge field and the << and >> symbols, and then select
formatting options. See “Defining display formats for fields” below
and “Changing the appearance of text” on page 3-88.
Deleting a field from a layout
To delete a field from a layout, in Layout mode, click the field and press
Backspace or Delete. When you delete a field from a layout, the field
and its data remain in the database file. (To delete a field from a database
file, see “Changing field definitions” on page 2-25.)
Defining display formats for fields
Display formats make data in fields look consistent when the data is
displayed or printed. The formats don’t change the data as stored in the
file. For example, a number field can be formatted to display three
decimal places. You can do the following:
1 Set no formats in FileMaker Pro. When you set no formats,
FileMaker Pro displays numbers, dates, and times according to the
system formats set in the Numbers and Date & Time control panels
at the time the file was created. (See appendix B, “Working with
international files” and the documentation that came with your
computer.)
1 Set default display formats in FileMaker Pro for all text, number,
date, time, and container fields you plan to define (see “Setting
default display formats,” below).
1 Define data formats individually in FileMaker Pro for existing text,
number, date, time, and container fields (see the sections beginning
on page 3-60).
Choose FileMaker Help Index from the or Help menu, and then type:
E merge fields
Choose FileMaker Help Index from the or Help menu, and then type:
E fields, deleting