Problem: Layouts not the same on OS X.2

[ksquared]

Hi ...

I am running Filemaker Server 5.5v2 on OS X machines as database servers and have

begun migrating our client machines from Filemaker Pro 5 on OS 9.x to Filemaker Pro 6.0v4 on OS X.2.

Some of the layouts of files served on the database servers are "landscape"

layouts and these appear/print fine on the OS 9.x client machines. However,

with the OS X.2 machines, the layouts seem to revert to "portrait" mode.

I have tried Filemaker Pro 6.0 on the OS 9.x machines and the

layouts are in "landscape" mode as they should. Another

combination: Filemaker Pro 5.5 on OS X, yielded the "portrait" mode "default".

Does anybody know how to fix this ?

Any help will be most appreciated.

P.S. Getting users to manually fix the layouts prior

to printing is not an option. Users do not have access to Layout mode

and they would have to switch to the correct "report" layouts,

in the first instance.

[BobWeaver]

Filemaker saves a different page setup for different operating systems. You will probably have to get onto an OSX client machine, go into each layout do a page setup and then resave these with the appropriate scripts. This is the same thing that you need to do when going between Mac and Windows. Filemaker has the capability to save multiple page setups, one for each OS.

[falkaholic]

Yes, I've had simlar problems going from OS9 to X. It seems the paper size would go from US Letter, to US Letter Small. Drove me crazy -- couldn't find out why ~1cm was getting chopped off.

[ksquared]

Thanks for the assistance so far.

I have tried altering the page setup from one of the OS X.2 clients

as suggested and have discovered that the settings don't 'stick'

when I close and re-open the file.

Should I be opening the files directly on the servers and altering

the page setups for individual layouts there ala global fields?

[jasonwood]

You don't need to open the files directly on the server but you do need to *save* the page set up settings in the script.

So... make the necessary changes to the page setup and the print dialog boxes, then go to your script that contains the "Page Setup [restore]" script step. Open the script then close it. It will ask you if you want to replace the settings currently stored for the page setup script step (among others possibly). Select "yes" for the page setup option.

"Replace" is a bit ambiguous. It will still retain the settings you set up on the OS 9 machine. Like Bob said, FileMaker will save different page setup's for different operating systems.

By the way, if you're not doing this already... It is a good idea to have a single script containing only your page setup step, which you can call before all of your print commands (assuming you always want the same page setup). Otherwise you risk having slightly different settings for different scripts.

[ksquared]

Thanks Bob and Jason.

Does this mean that I should be calling a page setup script

each time prior to going to a report layout? On OS 9.x,

it seemed to me that the layouts retained their page setup settings

as compared to OS X where the layouts revert to some default.

The reason I ask is because we are using a

3rd party solution ... and I am 'locked' out from adding scripts

for switching to our in-house designed reports.

Also for the standard solution reports,

our suppliers cannot replicate the problem on their OS X.2

machines. Apparently, the page setup scripts they use work.

One of them suggested that the printer driver may have

something to do with the behaviour of the page setups ... does anyone

have an understanding of this ?

Thanks again.

[BobWeaver]

I normally create several scripts with a single step: Page Setup[restore], for every possible printing orientation/scale/operating system. Although, as I mentioned before, FM can save page setups from multiple platforms in a single page setup. I then call the appropriate page setup script before I print. So, I don't need to worry about what the default may be for the layout.

In your situation, you don't have access to scripts, so this is out of the question. If all of your layouts need to be printed in landscape, you could possibly save the print setup as the print driver default. But, if you have a mix of portrait and landscape reports, then you may have no solution other than having your users do a page setup before each print. Maybe if you talk nice to whoever created the database, they will create a couple of generic print scripts (1 for portrait and 1 for landscape) that you can activate from a button on your custom reports.

Someone more familiar with OSX than I am may have a better solution.