How to use section conditions in Zoho Writer mail merge | Show or hide sections

How to use conditional sections to generate personalized documents

Overview

Section conditions let you show or hide entire sections of a merge template based on the value of a merge field. This is especially useful for avoiding inline text conditions at the paragraph level, which can become complex when conditional content spans multiple pages.

For example, a realtor can use a single proposal template for both residential and commercial properties. Based on the Property Type field, the merge process can display the relevant property details while hiding the irrelevant section.

Prerequisites

Steps

How to configure a section condition

You can configure section conditions in either of the following ways.

Method 1: From the Navigation pane

  1. In the Navigator pane, locate the named section.
  2. Click the Condition icon (Show/Hide section based on condition).

Method 2: From the Automate pane

  1. Open the Automate pane.
  2. Under Advanced Merge Fields, expand Conditions.
  3. Click Insert Section Condition.
  4. Select the named section for which you want to configure the condition.

Set up a section condition

  1. Select the merge field that determines whether the section should be displayed.

    Example: Property Type

  2. Choose the appropriate operator (for example, Contains).
  3. Enter the value that should display the section. For example:
    • Residential to display the Residential Property Details section.
    • Commercial to display the Commercial Property Details section.
  4. Click Update to save the condition.

You can edit the condition or add additional conditions later to meet your business requirements.

Verify the output

  1. Click Preview Merge to verify that the correct sections are displayed for each record.
  2. Configure your merge trigger and output settings. Refer to how to configure output settings in Writer document merge.
  3. Run the merge to generate personalized documents.