e-mailing a print preview

[Neville]

FM4

Would like to be able to e-mail a print preview out of FM.

We send our listings to our web host by going to a layout, print preview, copy, open WORD, paste, save as, and then emailing the word document as an attachment.

It is always to the same e-mail address. Thought a script might be able to do it.

Help appreciated

[agraham999]

Well if you are using a Mac...and especially OS X...a combination of AppleScript and FM scripting should allow you to Print as a PDF and send the file to a folder...which I guess could then be attached to a email using FMP. I haven't tried this yet...but it should be possible.

[Neville]

No sorry not mac

FM4 on win 98 so cant use MAc pdf option

Thanks anyway

[agraham999]

Well somewhere recently I ran across a PDF plug-in for FMP Windows. That might do it...

Try this:

http://www.afeina.com/affiler.php

[Rigsby]

You need Adobe PDF writer or something similar. NOT a plug in for FMP. If you install PDF Writer it 'plus' itself into FMP, or any other prog for that matter that can print. You can choose the PDF writer as your printer when printing, and hey-presto you have a PDF file. We use this system all the time for sending printed formats by mail. It works just great.

If you are relly stuck - print the screen to a JPG image and edit it down to just the layout you want - but hard work.....

Rigsby

[AndriesV]

Just another info. You could print using a postscript printer (or driver only) but have it output to (ps)file. Then use a free ps to pdf converter eg. http://www.ps2pdf.com/ or http://w210.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/ps2pdf/).

This is not automatic but you won't need to buy the Adobe PDF writer.

[Neville]

Rigsby

You clever person

I tried it and it works (I have full acrobat)

Thanks

[Fitch]

PDF is a good solution, but if you have a client (like mine) who insists on Word, there is a way: RTF (Micro$oft's Rich Text Format). I was tearing my hair out thinking about merges etc. until I realized how this could be done.

You'll can poke around for RTF at comp.databases.filemaker

...or look here for a good sample script.

Basically you just fill up a global text field with RTF formatting gobbledygook, then export it as a text file with a ".doc" extension and presto! Instant Word file. One annoyance is that you'll have to use repeated script commands due to limits on calculation length, e.g.

Set Field (gText, "RTF blah blah")

Set Field (gText, gText & "more RTF blah blah")

etc.