Exporting To MS Office?

[Matt C]

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and I hope someone can help me with a problem I've been having.

I have created a database using Filemaker 7 that holds customer quotes, complete with 2 images and around 7 text fields. I have 2 different layouts to display the quotes, 1 is an excel style Table (Which I am displaying as a list to show my formatted layout) and the other is a powerpoint-style Form.

For various reasons the account managers at the company want the quotes they create to be exported from Filemaker into Excel and Powerpoint (or Word) respectively. Is there any way of doing this? I think the main problem will probably be exporting the container field contents, as this is something that Filemaker does not usually allow. I can redesign the layouts in Word/Powerpoint/Excel to fit the information.

I'm not sure how easy this will be to accomplish, but it's an issue that I really need to solve.

Thanks for viewing the post and I hope you have any solutions/advice.

Matt

[BobWeaver]

I have recently had very good luck exporting filemaker data including graphics as an rtf file which MS Word can open directly and then edit. Unfortunately, rtf is not a built-in export option in filemaker, so you have to generate your own rtf tags and export as tab delimited with an rtf extension. It was a bit of trial and error to get it right, but it works very well. The basic method is this:

Create a document in Word formatted the way you want your final report to look, but where the actual field data goes, insert some tag text like this:

<<My Header goes here>>

<<My Field 1 data goes here>>

<<My Field 2 data goes here>>

<<My graphic 1 goes here>>

etc.

Now save the document in rtf format. Open in a simple text editor so that you can see all the rtf tags. Copy the whole thing and paste it into a global field (let's call it gRTFtemplate) in your Filemaker database.

Now, to create your output data, use the substitute function to replace the placeholder tags with the actual data:

OutputData=

Substitute(gRTFtemplate;

["<<My Header goes here>>";HeaderField];

["<<My Field 1 data goes here>>";Field1];

["<<My Field 2 data goes here>>"; Field2];

["<<My graphic 1 goes here>>"; GraphicField1])

Important notes:

1. The graphics have to be in rtf format. This is no big deal. You can have one version for display in one field in the database, and an rtf version in another field for the export. To convert the original graphic into rtf you can use some graphic converter utility. On the Mac, GraphicConverter from Lemke software does this very nicely. I assume there is an equivalent utility on Windows. The rtf graphic is just plain text so you can store it in a regular text field.

2. The nice thing about rtf format is that it eliminates problems with linebreaks embedded in the data or used as a record delimiter in exported data. Line breaks are totally ignored in an rtf file. So, you will need to convert any required linebreaks into a linebreak tag. Again use the Substitute function:

Substitute(OutputData;

[Matt C]

Wow, OK sounds good but since I'm relatively new to Filemaker it might take some time.

As I see it, you create the layout in Word, then you create text tags to tell Filemaker where to export the data. In Filemaker you then create a global field and paste the RTF data straight into it. Then the substitute function replaces the tags in the global field with the record data.

This seems ok so far and will probably require a bit of trial and error (as you said). If I want to export this data which file extension am I using?

The multiple record calculation looks a bit too complicated for me. I understand the substitute and case function principles, but I can't quite get my head round the calulation.

Any additional explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Matt

[BobWeaver]

You export it as tab delimited, but you change the extension from .tab to .rtf.

Since you mentioned that you are using a list layout for your line items, this indicates that it would be a multi-record export. It's not the end of the world though. The calculation I gave should work as-is. It's just the rtf code that needs to be separated out. If you set up a template in Word and post the rtf file, I could help out with the surgery.

I can provide more explanation about the process, but it's a big subject, and I could go on for days. Just let me know what items you are having difficulty with, and I will try to help. Good luck.

[Matt C]

OK I've started work on your solution but since I'm using Windows I cannot use the graphics converter you mentioned. I don't understand why Filemaker does not allow importing/exporting in the Instant Web Publishing version, I think it is ridiculous!

The calculations are all fine otherwise and your solution is good but I can't convert the images. Also, I have 8000 images so i think it would take a long time to convert each one!

[BobWeaver]

GraphicConverter can batch convert an entire folder at once so if you can't find something similar to run on Windows, you could find someone with a Mac and get them to do it. But, I imagine there must be an equivalent converter for Windows.

[Lee Smith]

Take a look at this URL

http://www.flydragonsoft.com/GraphicConverter.htm

HTH

Lee