Use the following field construction

{ IF { MERGEFIELD nick_name } "" "({ MERGEFIELD nick_name })" }

You must use Ctrl+F9 for each pair of field delimiters { } and you use
Alt+F9 to toggle off their display.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP, originally posted via msnews.microsoft.com

"Anvil22" wrote in message
news
I have a word document (catalogue) around one of the fields I would like
to
put a parenthesis. (nick_name). If there isn’t a nick name I would like
the
space left blank without the parentheses. I have tried if then but can’t
seem
to get it to work. Can anyone help?
Thanks
Dick