>My client (who does part of the programming) wants to have a template, where the user can put text placeholders in specific places. Since the end-user will do that, a template may be easier to work with than a merge.

I think merge is a misunderstood feature:) The end user, who doesn't know anything about databases and maybe computers in general but knows a little how to type in word could do it. He would simply type his document in word, inserting fields (MergeField) as placeholders. He could format it as he likes and then save. You would get a list of field identifiers from that document to supply from your data. That document is your template and you could 'merge' either from a VFP table (I think you want a typical one record data - you could pass it as SQL) or say from a text file.

PS: I wouldn't say this part for sure but if I remember right, in word typing with chevrons were auto creating that as a mergefield - vaguely something like that?
And word automaps some of them (ie: it knows FirstName, First Name, FName map to first name).

Cetin