Dynamic Text Tags not cooperating

[EmilySangster1]

Hello!

I'm trying to add dynamic to show the neighbors of the current map sheet in a data driven map book.  The preStr tag is showing up even when the attribute is empty because that sheet has no neighbors in that direction.  If there is no preStr tag the text box also no longer displays [empty] and becomes really hard to find. Below is an example of the text box contents.  Has any one else had this issue?

<dyn type="page" property="attribute" field="NewName_E" domainlookup="true" preStr="See Map "/>

[JeffBarrette]

Have you tried something like:

<dyn type="page" property="attribute" field="NewName_E" domainlookup="true" preStr="See Map " emptyStr=" "/>

Jeff

[EmilySangster1]

Hi Jeff,

That unfortunately has the same result as the text box without the empty string text.  Thanks though!!

Emily

[JeffBarrette]

Interesting. It works for me.  I.e., if a string is empty, the pre-string does not display.

Are you sure your values are empty or is it possible they contain spaces?

Jeff

[JeffBarrette · Accepted solution]

I think we figured out what is happening.  Is your index layer a shapefile?  We noticed with shapefile (not fGDBs) if you clear out a data value via a highlight/clear and save the data, the value is still a space - not Null. 

A short term work around could be using a fGDB as an index layer OR use the field calculator to null out values with a space.

A longer term solution we are considering is to make the empty string also evaluate for spaces only. 

I  hope this helps,
Jeff

[EmilySangster1]

Hi Jeff,

I moved the index layer to a geodatabase and that did the trick. Thanks for your help!!

Cheers,
Emily