Print data from several layouts in a single step

[Paolo]

Please, help me with this one.

My solution generates a printed document made of several pages. The document contains a form filled with data, a couple of list of records and, at the end, some static content.

To generate the whole document I need to print data from n different layouts.

From the user point of view, I'd like the solution to behave like the document is a single thing. When the user activates the "Print document..." script the print dialog box should show up only one time asking the user the number of copies and the desired printer.

Now I can't do this because a need a "Print..." script step for each layout the document is made of.

If I print without dialog the user can't select the printer and the nr of copies.

Any idea?

Thank you,

Paolo

[aaa]

May be this techique help you?

Create few container fields, then all what you want to print copy and paste to this container fields in one layout then print. At this way i print two copys of one invoice in the one page. Of course all this you must do by script.

[Paolo]

no, it doesn't help.

I need to print in a single step data from one layout (that shows some data in list mode) and another layout (that shows some other data as form view)

I could use portals to show the data that appears in the layout in list mode, however the number of rows is extremely variable

[dkemme]

To get some aspects of FMP OSX printing, such as printer choice, to work better, I have had some luck using an AppleScript GUI to call a print, pause, select cancel (this resets all printing choices) then run the script. I wonder if this trick could be used in your solution, do the print then cancel trick, then print with dialog, allowing user to select print and number of copies, then print without dialog for all the other layouts. If interested search forum for change printer and check out example I posted.

[Paolo]

I'm working on a cross-platform solution, so no applescript tricks allowed.

Also there is one more problem. Suppose the user ask for 3 copies: instead of having 3 copies of the whole document, it gets 3 copies of 1st layout then 3 copies of the second layout, and so on... Very annoying!