Jane and Mike I am sorry to trouble you again after you very kindly provided me with a custom text scheme. I have the text you gave me (without the provision for an estimated year of death because I do not have any of these): %INDI.BIRT.DATE:YEAR%=TextIf(%INDI.BIRT.DATE:XDATETYPE% = "calculated","(est)","")-%INDI.DEAT.DATE:YEAR% However people for whom I have only a birth year and not a death year the birth year shows up only as XXXX or XXXX(est) as appropriate. It would obviously be less ambiguous as XXXX- or XXXX(est)- . However where I have only a death year it does show up correctly as -YYYY . I would be grateful to know what extra line(s) I should put in the text scheme. Joan

Joan Replace the elusive hyphen '-' with =ForceText("-") which will force the hyphen '-' to appear unconditionally. The reason the '-' sometimes does not appear is the same reason that ' in ' does not appear in front of say %INDI.DEAT.PLAC% if there is no Place. See FH Help > Search tab > enter Understanding Text Templates > click List Topics button > click on Understanding Text Templates in Title list > click Display button. Regards, Mike Tate -----Original Message----- From: family-historian-users-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:family-historian-users-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of stevens@nwthree.demon.co.uk Sent: 12 August 2011 21:11 To: FAMILY-HISTORIAN-USERS@rootsweb.com Subject: [FHU] Estimated dates Jane and Mike I am sorry to trouble you again after you very kindly provided me with a custom text scheme. I have the text you gave me (without the provision for an estimated year of death because I do not have any of these): %INDI.BIRT.DATE:YEAR%=TextIf(%INDI.BIRT.DATE:XDATETYPE% = "calculated","(est)","")-%INDI.DEAT.DATE:YEAR% However people for whom I have only a birth year and not a death year the birth year shows up only as XXXX or XXXX(est) as appropriate. It would obviously be less ambiguous as XXXX- or XXXX(est)- . However where I have only a death year it does show up correctly as -YYYY . I would be grateful to know what extra line(s) I should put in the text scheme. Joan