Span a portal acrosee multiple pages.

[Chris Good]

I have a database that prints out a two page invoice. There is a portal on the layout that spans two pages because the orders have so many items. It works fine for the most part, but if you change the printer then the printable range changes and I have to go in an modiy the layout.

Is there a way to link to portals? Can I put on on the first page and then have he second one pick up with the remaining records? Or can you think of another way to get a portal to span two pages?

[aklodner]

Hi Chris,

If you're using FM 7, you can tell a portal which row to begin on. So, lets say for example, on the first page you display the first 10 line items. Create a second portal, same relationship and sort order, on the second page that starts at 11. This should work.

On a separate note, you could/should print your invoices from the line items table, using sub summary parts. Then you wouldn't have to worry about laying out the portals at all.

HTH,

Adam

[Chris Good]

I like the second idea. I have been playing with this a little bit but I can't quite figure out what to do. I have a table called orders which is related to an invoices table via an invoice #. Orders contains all of the information on each line item.

If I setup a new layout for the copy of the invoice where do I put the line item data. It would seem that that should go in the body. What goes in the sub summary leading and trailing section or do I use a trailing grand summary?

I also want to have a customer notes field print at the end of an invoice and I want to print a number of fields at the end such as subtotal, downpayment, discount, remainder due. The last few fields I mentioned are part of the invoices table.

Thanks for the good ideas.