Modifying text with tags in If Then Else in VBScript Label Expressions

Question

I am having a problem with formatting text in a label expression using VBscript.

Here is my label expression:

---

Function FindLabel ([Mean], [Count])
if ([Mean] < 1) then
    FindLabel =   [Count] & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "< 1" & vbCrLf & " "
Else
    FindLabel =   "<FNT size='3'>" & [Count] & vbCrLf & vbCrLf& "</FNT>" & "<BOL>" & 
Round([Mean],1) & "</BOL>" & vbCrLf & " "
end if
End Function

---

It results with this: the label on the left is what I want.

I understand that the cells on the right are formatted as they are because of the < formatting tags> but if I edit the label expression to have the tags on both sides of the Else statement like this:

---

Function FindLabel ([Mean], [Count])
if ([Mean] < 1) then
    FindLabel =   "<FNT size='3'>" & [Count] & vbCrLf & vbCrLf& "</FNT>" & "<BOL>" & "< 1" & "</BOL>" & vbCrLf & " "
Else
    FindLabel =   "<FNT size='3'>" & [Count] & vbCrLf & vbCrLf& "</FNT>" & "<BOL>" & Round([Mean],1) & "</BOL>" & vbCrLf & " "
end if
End Function

---

It results with this:

Is there some way around putting tags on either side of the Else statement?

Answer 1

The problem is to do with your "< 1", you have used a < symbol which if you think about it is the opening character of any of your html font tags. So you've essentially opened a tag, not said what it was and not closed it correctly. Hence the weirdness you are getting.

So how do you display a symbol as text which is also a special character? You replace it with the html version of it, see this page.

So by replacing < with < I see the < symbol in the label and I am creating correctly structured syntax.