Setting a Layout to avoid scroll-bars!

[sydneytim]

Greetings All!

I have a database that I use to keep a journal. Some entries (records) can be as little as 100 words, some can be as verbose as 5000.

The layout I use to add to the journal has a 'main-body' text-box of about 30 lines, complete with scroll bars.

That's fine when I add to the journal, but what about when I want to print?

How can I set up a layout so a 100 word entry prints on one page, but a 5000 word entry prints on multiple pages?

Thanks,

Sydneytim

[Reed]

You could make the field big enough to stretch across as many pages as you need in layout mode. Then use the sliding/printing options to make the part shrink to fit depending on the length of the text. Of course you can keep your existing layout with scroll bars for data entry, and then just use the new one for printing.

Dana

[Oldfogey]

Large text fields used to create problems when printing across page boundaries. As far as I'm aware, V7 hasn't improved the situation.

The problems are mainly spacing, making the output unsuitable for customer use. If it's just personal, no problem.

[DykstrL]

If you use <merge fields> on a different print layout, along with defined print margins, they will print very nicely across page boundaries.

Merge fields were made for printing. You can put several merge fields in a single text block and stretch the text block to the maximum pages needed (up to 10 pages). Then have the text block slide up and also to "reduce the size of the enclosing part.

Just script the print to go to the 'print' layout and then after, go back to the data layout.

[Oldfogey]

Thanks, DykstrI.

I hate merge fields (lots of bad experiences) but I'll give anything a go.

What do you mean by a 'text block' and will this work with globals? (One of my many headaches is printing letters with many paragraphs being globals.)

[-Queue-]

A text block is a block of text, e.g. field labels or other text on a layout. As long as your block doesn't exceed 6 pages (I believe that's the limit), you can use any non-container merge field in it--global, calculation, or otherwise.