Printing does not show up on paper but on Preview?

[Joseph31]

My 10 page letter looks great on preview mode...but when I go to print it nothing shows up? Why? My letter is one huge text box...

[Joseph31]

It's me again...There has to be a fix to this...someone pls have an answer

[Joseph31]

It's me one more time...Some of my 10 pages print and some do not...Help

[Vaughan]

Hi Joseph

We're not good at mind reading. How about you tell us the version of FMP you are using (and the patch level, as in 5.5v3) and the OS.

[Joseph31]

I am using 6.0 V1....windows 2000...thanks for the help

[Damocles]

Joseph,

Have you tried recreating the layout? (NOT duplicating it).

Does your printer work well with other applications?

Do other FileMaker layouts print normally?

Is the "Do not print the selected object" box checked?

Paul

[Joseph31]

I have tried all of those options...Its 10 pages long I have no Idea what is going on...

[-Queue-]

What does the Print dialog box show? Is it printing Records being browsed, Current record, page 1 to x, etc.?

[Joseph31]

Yes it is priting records being browsed...But I think it has do with the Very Large Text box...b/c it is doing this...Not printing the 1st and 2nd Printing the 3rd and 4th noprinting the 5th and 6th printing the 7th and 8th like that?

I have No Idea...oh and it is also cutting off in 1/2 pages sometimes?

[Vaughan]

First thing to do is patch your copy to FMP 6.0v4. The update is free and on the FMP web site.

This may have been a bug that was fixed a couple of *years* ago.

[Joseph31]

I can not find my version is there another place to find patches....Thanks for all the help

[Vaughan]

Huh?

http://www.filemaker.com/support/updaters.html

[grant]

I'm not sure if this will help, but I had some problems like this when the text box handles touched the header or footer areas.

May help !

[mgm75]

We have run into this problem with several of our solutions. It took us months just to get FM to admit that there is indeed a printing problem. The problem seems to be in 2 places 1. printing protals (FM's official answer is you're not supposed to print portals) and 2 slide printing. Here are some fixes we have tried. different fixes work for for different cleients depending on the OS, printer driver, and FM version.

1. Use a hp1200 driver

2. Change you font (use a true type)

3. Under text formating change you line spacing (up or down)

One of these or a combo of these should work.

p.s. there is no official word but I hope this printing mess is fixed in 7

[Oldfogey]

There's a limit to the size of a text box. Have you exceeded it? Sorry, I can't remember what it is but it is around 10 pages.

[Vaughan]

A clinet of mine recently had a similar problem: a report would preview OK but the first 7 out of 10 pages would print, the last three are blank. The problem occurred on one printer but not another.

It turned out to be printer-driver related. Nothing to do with FMP.

[DonH]

Good problem. And nobody knows the answer as usual. sigh. I'm having this exact same problem too and have asked everybody and all I get is the pat answers of "is this checked?" YES! YES YES YES

I think the answer is FM just can NOT handle large print jobs where a field goes to say 10 pages. Or even 9. This is THE worst program for printing I've ever seen.

And try finding a tutorial or even any decent instructions on how to set everything up. HAH! Don't exist.

I've patched I've done everything even used the demo version of 7 and the print problem persists.

Now what is probably happening is there is some "obvious" thing that nobody mentions because it is so "obvious". Like maybe the size of the field box or the footer has to be such and such distance from the body or the body has to end after a page break or something.

Where is a document detailing EXACTLY how to set up a large field for printing?

[DonH]

My fix is not elegant but it works.

Take the largest size the field will be (ie 20 pages) and then break it down into 5 page segments. Look for my thread about this problem and you will find a script for how to do it. You have to figure out how many lines per page and then multiply by 5. You set up say 4 fields of 5 pages each to put the one huge field into.

Then you have layouts for each field, with the field stretched only 5 pages. Anything beyond 5 pages seems to be when FM starts choking and gagging.

Next you have a master script that looks at each of the fields and if there is anything in it, it prints that layout.

Not great, but it works.

[DonH]

And is there a place to get all the patches for all the versions?

[ESpringer]

The URL posted by Vaughn above has the patches. Use the drop-down to get to your base version (5/6/7).

[DonH]

Of course getting a patch for 3 is out of the question. LOL

Anyway, I worked out even a better solution. It prints out as many pages as you have in that field. I basically made 2 fields. 1 is a temp field called

printHolder the other is just printCounter.

Then I loop over the field and set printHolder to the next block of text that fits on one page incrementing the printCounter each time to know where to go for the next block.

Works great so far. Of course you see a PRINT little popup however many times it prints.

Using the printCounter also makes it easy to adjust how many lines of text go on each page. Since I am taking number of lines * printCounter to find each block I just change the number of lines.

And of course the printCounter becomes your page number since the built in page numbering won't work with this.

[DonH]

I was wrong! Argh. The problem being with this method is that it counts the line breaks. So if you have a long line, like say a paragraph, it counts it as 1 line break EVEN tho it wraps it in printing. Thus it may be 10 lines of printing but only 1 line by the line breaks. So data will be chopped off at the bottom of the page.

So now I have come up with the best solution yet. Export the data to a tab file, then run a macro in word to open it and print it. You can even use a simple batch file to automate the whole thing. FM can export, then call the batch file. The batch file opens Word and tells it to run the macro that sets up your headers, footers etc then prints it out and closes Word again.

That end of it works GREAT. Now I have more to work out on the FM end. grrrr

[gregincolumbus]

I have had a similar problem with FMP Developer 7 and MAC printing......same file prints graphics fine on PC (using same printer) and even shows up on preview on MAC but it does not print on MAC....file has never crashed, never been recovered.

Greg