Reusing Page Setup

[Mike D.]

I

[-Queue-]

Import your existing setup/print scripts into all your other files and remap the calling scripts to point to the imported ones.

That's the easiest way I can think of to do this.

[Mike D.]

Nice idea, unfortunately it didn't work.

I made sure that I refreshed the page setup in the preference file to print records being browsed in landscape orientation. Then I went to one of the calling files and imported that setup script. Then I changed the script generating the report to use the imported page setup script that calls the one in the preference file. I tested it by changing the page setup in the calling file to Portrait since the report should be in Landscape. When I run the report, it now shows up Portrait.

I stepped through the script with Debug on and watched it reference the page setup script in the preferences file and still result in the wrong orientation.

This has me baffled. I really hope I don't have to update the page setup scripts in all the different files.

Mike

[-Queue-]

The imported script shouldn't be referencing any page setups in the preferences file. It has to be local to the file performing the print, similar to find, sort, import, and export setups. Make sure that your Print step is also in the same script. "Print" preferences are reliant upon the Print Setup step being present, i.e. printing current record portrait is saved with the Print Setup, not with Print, as one would probably assume.

What I do is create the number of scripts necessary for each combination: one for Current Record-Portrait, one for Current Record-Landscape, one for Records Being Browsed-Portrait, etc. with an If statement based on a global boolean I set from other scripts. If [not global] Print Setup {else} Print. Then when I call these scripts, they perform as desired based upon the global. And they can easily be imported to other files while maintaining their setup.

HTH

[Mike D.]

I understand what you're saying however, I was hoping that FileMaker would "ripple" the settings from one file to another. Obviously that is not the case. My concern was that when I send the files from my Mac to the Client's PC that the page setups would not get screwed up. If they did, I was looking for the easy way for the client to fix them.

What I will do instead is copy the project to a PC and refresh the page setup scripts in each file before I zip the files to the client.

Thanks, Mike

[-Queue-]

If you keep the Prints with the Print Setups, then it will keep the settings between files.

[Mike D.]

Thanks, Mike

[DykstrL]

FileMaker saves separate Print Setup settings for both platforms. If you define the Print Setup scripts on WIN and MAC, then import the scripts to each file of your solution, they will work.

We have setup a Library file for our FMP developers that contain a lot of these types of resuable scripts that we can import from. We also put reusable calculations, such as phone field masking, in the Library file. We also share buttons, images, logos and other reusable FMP stuff in this file.

[Mike D.]

That's what I ended up doing. I was leery about just defining the print setup on my Mac since the client is all PC. I wasn't sure if I could just reference the print setups in the Preference file or if I needed to import them to the individual files. Importing was the correct answer.

Mike