Publishing Reports with Summaries

[FM Student]

I have learned in the IWP forum that publishing reports with sub-summaries and leading or trailing summaries isn't going to happen in IWP - possibly not at all. I am new to FileMaker and, more specifically, to web publishing. I need to know what options there are. Ideas I could explore include:

- Using a regular layout, placing fields in the body to look like a report layout, as suggested in the IWP forum - seems a good idea.

- Publish and update the reports regularly as a pdf so they can be opened from the FileMaker on the web.

- Install FM Pro on the PC's that need complex reports and sync data from the main server to those remote sites. (They are franchise businesses - many remote sites.)

- Use a 3rd party report writer (Crystal?) that can publish to the web.

- Learn one of the web page scripting languages and create the report in a customised web page, for example PHP. Okay, laugh if that's a bad example, but I don't know which is best.

Is there something here that would work, or is there a better solution?

Regards,

Peter.

[Garry Claridge]

PHP is a very good method. However, you may need to purchase FM Server Advanced or CafePHP.

Depending on how dynamic the data is, as another method, you could output periodic reports which are read by a web-application or stored in another database such as MySQL.

All the best.

Garry