Can't remember how this one feature works. :|

Question

Ok, so I've been out of the loop for a little while now, but I'm trying to brainstorm a way to improve my workflow. I vaguely remember there being some sort of feature where you can edit the Comment field of a text box to something like {{Subject}} and then that text box will display its Subject automatically.

I can't, for the life of me, remember what this is called, how it works, and/or what limitations there are to it's effectiveness in communicating information found in custom columns of my markups list.

Am I crazy, or does this exist and I'm just not remembering something critical to making it work correctly?

Ultimately, I'd like to have something like a red square indicating the general location of a junction box, and two labels that tell the box id (currently I put this in the Comments column) and box size (currently I put this in a custom column called BOX).

David Cutler · Accepted Answer

@Brandon Costlow I think what you are describing is the ability to place a formula in the "Label" field that captures data from another column.

This is relatively simple entering the string "«Column Name»" in the label block in your markup properties:

In this case the "Phase" column for this tool is "HOP DRAINAGE".

While this works great for displaying information in the PDF if you export your markup list the feature falls apart as the export file returns "«Phase»" in the ":Label" column in the .CSV not "HOP DRAINAGE".  The information is in the "Comments" column - but it also includes the quantity in the same cell.  I'd expect with some Excel/Power Query magic you could extra that data, but I haven't dug into that yet.

Hope this helps.  😎

Vince French · Accepted Answer

Hi @David Cutler - you are correct that you can extract the data that you need.  With Excel formulas you can probably use the TEXTBEFORE function and reference the last space as the split point.  In PQ you could do the same thing either splitting or extracting using the last space.