When the answer to a question in the Q&A table is left empty, a blank line appears in the resulting finished document.  That blank line is intended to send a helpful signal to the form user, letting them know that some information is missing.  But occasionally the form creator wants nothing to appear in the finished document when the answer is empty, or perhaps "TBD" should appear, to indicate that a date is "to be determined".  The trick is to use the Condition button to make a field conditional.

For this first example, suppose the Q&A table asks for a “ClientName”.  First click the Field button to add a {ClientName} field to the form, then select that field and click Condition to make it conditional.  Since you only want the field to appear when the ClientName is not empty, choose "is not empty" and click Done. The resulting conditional field looks like this:

{ClientName<>[empty]:{ClientName}}

You can copy and paste that chunk elsewhere in the form if you need the client’s name to appear (or not appear) in other places too.

For our second example, suppose the Q&A table asks, “Date of next hearing?  (Leave blank if TBD)”, and the question is labeled “NextHearing”.  In the form where the date belongs add a {NextHearing} field and make it conditional just as we did with the ClientName field above:

{NextHearing<>[empty]:{NextHearing}}

Right next to it, type the text “TBD”, select it, and make it conditional too, so that it only appears when the NextHearing answer is empty:

{NextHearing=[empty]:TBD}

Now when a date is provided in the Q&A table, that date appears in the form.  When a date is not provided, “TBD” appears instead.

Originally submitted by Scott Campbell