I am making a catalog with 200 similar items, some have jpg attached to them and some don't. I would like to print a catalog with all items in order. When the container field has no attached picture I want to move everything up in the layout. I have tried everything similar to text field in sliding and printing. However on my layout the empty container fields continue to show up as white space. Am I missing something obvious? Is this possible?

Thanks in advance.

I'm trying to do the same (Slide a container field on a printed layout). Does anybody know if it can be done ?

I confess that I have never tried sliding a container field; I generally opted for fixed locations with the more 'optional' items located at the screen and page bottom, but I can understand why that might look awkward.

If indeed containers don't slide, your choice might be to create a specialized print layout built out of calc fields that would overlay the container field. Your calc fields would look like:

ItemNumbWOGraphic = if IsEmpty(container), ItemNumb, "")

ItemDescWOGraphic = if IsEmpty(container), ItemDesc, "")

ItemNumbWGraphic = if (not IsEmpty(container), ItemNumb, "")

ItemDescWOGraphic = if (not IsEmpty(container), ItemDesc, "")

The first two items would be placed over the graphic field, the second pair below. Thus, if the container is empty, the first two calc fields will print, but if not empty, the lower two calc fields will print.

*IF* containers don't slide. I'm not finding any reference in the help files.

I've done some fiddling about and if you can slide containers, it's certainly not obvious how to do it. You can slide a field up next to a container if you specify sliding based only on directly above, but I don't think you can slide a field up if the container field above it is empty. Seems like a pretty serious limitation.

If this is something that gets printed on a regular basis, it might be worth the trouble to set up an XML export that uses an XSLT to convert your FileMaker data into something printable. For example you can produce HTML fairly easily, and print from a browser. There are examples of this kind of conversion on the Filemaker site.

http://www.filemaker.com/technologies/xslt_library.html

There are several HTML examples, a couple of RTF generators, and one for Quark Xpress.

Container Fields do Slide however there are some strict parameters.

1) The Container field must be set to fit as Left/Top reduce or enlarge.

2) The Pixel size of the image must either be <= than your largest expectations.

Container Fields do Slide however there are some strict parameters.

1) The Container field must be set to fit as Left/Top reduce or enlarge.

2) The Pixel size of the image must either be <= than your largest expectations.

Container Fields do Slide however there are some strict parameters.

1) The Container field must be set to fit as Left/Top reduce or enlarge.

2) The Pixel size of the image must either be <= than your largest expectations.