The story:

Mac Os, running 8.1

Filemaker 3

Two Apple Laser writer on ethernet network

One old mac acting like server

3 mac's networked via ethernet

The Problem: Printer A Prints on Letter head and Envelope

Printer B prints related document. I would like to print all without choosing the printers manually.

Scripts work Ok but I have to choose the printer manually. Is there a way to make the script to choose the printer. I have been using FMP for 9 years this is the first problem that I can not seem to resolve. Any body up to chalange.

Toronto, Canada

I don't know if your FM 3 has the "Page Setup" script command or not. If it does, make two one-command scripts with this command, call them Printer A and Printer B, or whatever. Manually choose the printer & print a test file for Printer A, then open the "Printer A" script and close it again. Choose "replace" on the keep/replace dialog box. Do the same process for Printer B. You now have two little scripts that will switch from printer to printer. Run these as subscripts where appropriate in the scripts that generate your reports.

I use this technique to switch from portrait to landscape for various reasons. Leaving them as subscripts (rather than memorizing a page setup directly in your main script) allows you to use them in the future by including as subscripts in scripts as yet unwritten.

I am not sure of OS 8.1 is using the Laserwriter 8 driver or not, or if it is possible to switch printers via Page Setup. If you have to use the Chooser to do this, then it is possible to include a small Applescript within your FM script (unless this capability came along since FM 3).

Steve Brown

You can't switch printers with the page setup, but you can do it with applescript as long as the printers have desktop printer icons. Should be no problem with FM 3, but you will need to have at least OS8.5 which the oldest MacOS to have scriptable desktop printing. You may be able to find an OS8.5 or 8.6 install CD available on ebay. Try to get it if you can. 8.6 is the most stable of any of the 8.x versions.

As for the applescript, see the following post:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=1458&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=all&fpart=1