Help getting excel headings into first field of exported text data file

[contrakid]

Hi all and thanks for any help in advance.

 

I have a database in FM that cleans up data from excel and sorts and splits required data and then exports many different versions to multiple text files that i import into a template in Indesign and auto typeset lots of variable data.

 

I now want to have the first line of exported data as the headings for each column but I can't figure out how to do this without cocking up how my exported text files are named as I use set variable for file names from 2 of the fields in the data and when I insert heading into first line of data I get the same file names for all my text files etc.

 

What would be the best way to get round this?

 

Hope this make sense.

 

Thanks

[AHunter3]

Having the field names as the first row has nothing to do with naming the text files.

 

 

What format are you exporting the data? Excel spreadsheets? Comma separated value text files? Something else?

 

To export as excel with the first row being the field names, execute that option in the export dialog: in the dialog where it invites you to specify the name of the worksheet, Title, etc etc, there's a checkbox at the top, "Use field names as column names in first row". It should default to that.

 

 

To export as comma delimited values instead, export to the format called "Merge". Merge is comma separated values with a header row.

 

 

If you meant that you want the first row to have column names OTHER THAN the field names, that's generally messier, but it sounds like the entire purpose of your database is to clean up and then export data, so if that's the case, just import into a new table that has the columns named the way you want them named in the export file. Then export from that table.