FM7 Preview Mode Problem

[proavis]

I have scoured the user and support forums for information on this problem and have found nothing, so it's possible that I'm the only one experiencing it.

When viewing a layout - any layout - in Preview Mode in FM7, it appears to be perfectly normal when viewed at normal size, i.e., Zoom at 100%. However, if I Zoom In to the layout the image appears to be pixelated as if enlarging a 72dpi raster image. This is not the behavior on FM6 and earlier where the image scales properly. Because of the problems with associated with Postscript fonts, I've insured that the layouts I'm using incorporate only True Type typefaces.

I've tried this on two different Macs, both running OS 10.3.3, and with a variety of databases and layouts with the same result. I'm very interested in finding out if anyone else is experiencing this problem.

Jim

Version: v7.x

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[Vaughan]

I can confirm this on MacOS X 10.2.8, FMP Trial 7.0v1. I'm getting a full version soon, will post results with FMP 7 and Developer 7 later if possible.

[dharlow]

I can confirm this problem with my FM7 Developer version and 10.3.3.

Daniel

[Ano Nimus]

I get it, too (Dev7 on MaxOSX.3)

Is this really a problem? It's just the preview, after all. One could explain that like 'it's a sort of screenshot of what your printed db will look like'. I mean, you try and stretch a real live piece of paper to 400% and then see how readable it is

[Vaughan]

I'm tempted to agree Ano, but I'm sure a few people may have relied on it scaling well for some feature or another.

I often use (in my current FMP 6 solutions) a process for previews where the layout is viewed in Preview mode, then the Copy command followed by Paste put an image into a global field which is then viewed in browse mode. I sometimes print from this preview image too... so I'm wondering if this process wil.break in 7?

[proavis]

Well, IMHO this is definitely a problem. Reports that are to be printed are often designed using much smaller type sizes than those designed for display on the screen. Since you don't see how sub-summaries (and other things) are going to be rendered in any mode but Preview, it's imperative that you be able to clearly see how a layout is going to look when printed. With FM7 working the way it is now, small font sizes are unreadable at 100% because of their size, and they remain that way because of the scaling problem with FM7.

Ano, if a computer screen had the resolution of a piece of paper, I would agree with your comment that it doesn't matter. That, of course, is not the case.

Besides, this is a change in behavior from FM6 and earlier versions (which scaled the zoomed image in Preview exactly the same way it does in Browse or Layout modes).

I have found someone else on another forum who is having the same problem, but all-in-all it seems to be rare.

Jim

[Aussie John]

proavis said:

I have found someone else on another forum who is having the same problem, but all-in-all it seems to be rare.

Jim

Problem exists here in the trial version

Version: v6.x

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[Mikey]

Same problem here and agree with the need to have small fonts for print but zoom for readability on screen. What really makes this strange is that this problem only happens in Preview mode. The same layout looks just great at any zoom level when in Browse, Find, or Layout/Design modes. This suggests to me that this has something to do with a new display/font smoothing engine in FMP7 and this new system is only used in Preview.

In addition, I am not able to print to a HP Laserjet 500N printer. It says that there is not enough printer memory when I print a lot of records (just the current record is fine). It's as if FMP7 is treating the whole page as a bit-mapped graphic instead of text which is causing the zoom problem and out of memory problem.

This is keeping me in FMP6 for now, and that's a bummer because I've already bought two copies of 7.

OS: Mac OS X 10.3.3

System: PMac G4 with 1.25Gb RAM