Problems printing a long field

[Ronald_K]

Hi, I have a large field that is set for up to 8 pages in length. When the content of this field goes above about 20K characters (64K is the max, correct?) the printout is missing the first page and then cuts off after the middle of the 6th page.

Is this a known bug of FM? I am using FM 5.0 and FM server 5.5 on Win NT. I have tried turing sliding on and off (I need the shrink the enclosed) since I don't want blank pages) but no help.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated!

Ron

[Vaughan]

Text fields are limited to 64 KB. This is a feature!

If you want to store text longer then 64KB, split it into many records. Each record could be, for example, a chapter, a page; or a paragraph. It all depends on the length of your text and the number of records you want to split it into.

Do *not* split the text into multiple fields in the same record: this will become a nightmare to print, edit and generally work with.

[Ronald_K]

Thanks for your reply. Actually I don't want to store a longer text field. I want to understand why a text field with LESS than the max wont print properly. I have text fields with 25K characters and they drop off the first page and cut off the last page when printing. Previewing them, they look fine

Thanks

[Vaughan]

Check the options set for the body part of the layout. Make sure the "Allow page to break across boundaries" and "Discard remainder of part before new page" options are NOT selected.

The preview not matching the printed output suggests a printer driver problem. Check for a new version of the driver. Also check the FMI web page for the update to FMP -- the latest was 5.0v3.

[Sirius]

Hi FM-workers!

The reason I checked this forum, was a text-cutoff problem in printing and previewing a multi page text field with more text than 1 page.

The answers I read were all based upon the assumption of a fixed amount of text lines per page: once you have set it right, it works forever.

But..., my client uses (in 20 networked FMP v6 applications with FM-Server v5 on Mac's) such a field for printing and archiving business letters and wants to use character formatting in the letters (e.g. bold, underline, italics etc.). This means the amount of lines in the field can vary. Which means the text on the page sometimes breaks in the middle of a line and sometimes it does not, at the and of a page.

So, again, how to fix this?

Actually, as a programmer, I feel that the Filemaker Company should fix this problem, because it is a straight bug! ANY text should NEVER break through ANY line in ANY case on ANY printer!

Thnx, I hope you can help.

Paul

[Vaughan]

It was meant to be fixed a few versions ago.

[BobWeaver]

Paul, using bold, italics and even underline styles should not affect the line spacing. The only format changes that will do this are changing the actual font, font size and using superscript/subscripts. If you can get it set up to pagebreak at the right point for unstyled text, then it should work with bold, italic and underline.

Also, have a look at this topic:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB8&Number=1518&page=1&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=all&fpart=1

PS. You're right, it's a bug any way you look at it. FMI even added a secret check box option to a later update of version 3 (or maybe it was 4) to correct the problem, and then later removed it when they brought out version 5, claiming that it wasn't needed because the problem was fixed. I still don't know what they think they fixed.

[nostrilhair]

The whole issue of having long layouts print has been a thorn in my side for the last year. Currently I have users that are using the layout as a simple storage repository and then cutting and pasting in and out of the field for actual printing of their narrative reports. The upper limit on this layout appears to be 6 pages. I can print up to 11 pages on a Mac but Windows appears to be the issue. At one point there was a problem with Long Printer Names. I think there is a connection with operating system changes about 14 months ago(XP?). I have spent an excessive amount of time on this and have not come up with an answer in the last year. Any help would be appreciated!

MJH

[BobWeaver]

You might want to consider exporting to a page layout program.

[nostrilhair]

I have checked the text in this field and even at under the 64k limit I am stumped. I have recreated this problem with a single field database, 11 pages long, filled with text and I can get the 1st page blank with the remaining say 6 pages printing and then the last page cutting off. Again anybody who care to replicate this and give me a solution I would be impressed with. I think this is a Windows/Printer driver problem but I guess I am surprised as this layout has worked for better than 5 years and it is only the last 12-14 months where I have had problems from users.

MJH

[danjacoby]

Have you changed printers/drivers lately?

Have you changed networks lately (is this running on a network)?

A few years ago, Filemaker Advisor Magazine printed a solution for keeping paragraphs together on a page. I wish I had looked at it more closely ("memorized it", that is), because it's a constant thorn in the side of anyone trying to print "long" fields.

Silly idea -- have you tried creating a "merge field"? Remember, you'll have to make the field really, really long (like maybe 8-10 pages long), and then you'll probably want to have it slide up (honest!). But it might solve the problem (I mean, at this point you never know).

[SteveS]

I agree with you, I have had the same problems with text being cut off on multi-page documents. After I fixed the problem by using the "allow page break" option in FM40, now I am faced with the same type of problem in a LAN setting. Different printers are used with unexpected results.

[nostrilhair]

I have had NO real answers posted to this problem of printing long fields. I do believe it is some sort of driver/windows problem. I can create any number of files and replicate this problem on windows but print this easily on a Mac. I have had success with some direct connect printers in Windows. Very puzzling, very irritating!

[cjaeger]

well, if the pages show up right in page preview, copy all the pages to an intermediate database containig only one container field and a page number. this will copy all the pages from your printout as pict, transfer to container and print from there.

[Peter2543]

my answer is as follows:

printing multi line fields, or multi line detail parts more precisely, does not work properly to any non-72dpi device. The effect is that lines shift down several pixels in some records. The best heuristic I know of against it is to adjust the header part size pixelwise until you get a best result. It does not depend on printer driver, sliding-up or not, font and so on. The most easy way to get it is to print to Acrobat PDFWriter, setting the resolution to 150DPI instead of the default MONITOR.

there is another separate issue: multi line fields eg portals are printed across page splits, which can be overcome by pixelwise adjustment of header and detail part size. There is an TechInfo, nr. 101515 on this.

Peter