pdfMachine merge
Purchase Download Main pdfMachine merge pageMultiple line items in an email
Consecutive rows in the data source file that have the same email address can be "bundled" together and only one email is sent per bundle. This is often the case when producing data from database queries. An example use is sending out invoices to clients. Lets say you have a data source file containing line items such as:| customer | invoice_id | invoice_date | item | unit_cost | quantity | amt_due | |
| wayne@acme.com | Acme Corp | 223 | 23-Jan-11 | blue widget | $23 | 4 | $391 |
| wayne@acme.com | Acme Corp | 223 | 23-Jan-11 | red widget | $21 | 2 | $391 |
| wayne@acme.com | Acme Corp | 223 | 23-Jan-11 | green watzit | $13 | 1 | $391 |
| wayne@acme.com | Acme Corp | 223 | 23-Jan-11 | pink jigger | $19 | 1 | $391 |
| wayne@acme.com | Acme Corp | 223 | 23-Jan-11 | black thingy | $25 | 9 | $391 |
| bugs@somefirm.com | Big Jim's Shop | 224 | 23-Jan-11 | black thingy | $25 | 1 | $250 |
| bugs@somefirm.com | Big Jim's Shop | 224 | 23-Jan-11 | pink thingy | $25 | 2 | $250 |
| bugs@somefirm.com | Big Jim's Shop | 224 | 23-Jan-11 | red thingy | $25 | 3 | $250 |
| bugs@somefirm.com | Big Jim's Shop | 224 | 23-Jan-11 | blue thingy | $25 | 4 | $250 |
| smith@smiths.com | Smiths Inc. | 225 | 23-Jan-11 | blue thingy | $25 | 4 | $100 |
When it comes to substituting merge tags with data, tags may have a number appended to them to identify which row to use in the group of rows with the same email.
e.g.
{{item}} - the last item in the bundle {{item1}} - the first item in the bundle {{item2}} - the second item in the bundle ...
{{itemN}} - the Nth item in the bundle
Note: If there are a variable number of rows per email address in the data source file, and you want to create tables with a variable numbers of rows, we recommend using HTML templates with Liquid templating language and/or Javascript. If you need help or more information on this feature please contact