I have a request from the boss for our small fm db. He would like to have a 50 page document (word) available for the 40 or so users to edit. I am not sure what the best way to go about this is, or if FM is the tool. I can see large fields where useres can make changes. Then I need to do all the formatting in FM to have the output maintain its appearance. All users have FM and Word on their computers. Wea re running a 1GHZ G4 with FM server. Could I get some advice on this?

Thanks in Advance

norm

Since Word is your normal output format, and since Word is probably familiar to all users, I would start there. With word (Office XP anyway)if you open a document on your LAN and others try to access it they will get a message that it is in use and would they like to work on a copy for later synchronization. Sure, why not. I make a few changes and close my copy. One person in charge of the project can control the master file and is presented with graphically identified changes to accept or reject. A history of changes and users can automatically be maintained.

The most important issue with either method is reviewing and accepting changes... who decides and how? If all users have equal weight, each person can throw out any other's modifications and now we don't know what good ideas were lost and we are, practical purposes, left with the last user (change) having all the control.

The control ove the project is more important than the method... but I would stick to Word.

FMP text fields can only hold 64K, this is going to be a big problem for you.

There are "real" document management tools available, you might need to look around. They probably won't be "off the shelf" though.