Output FMP Layout to Static Web Page

Dave Roblit · June 9, 2005

I have seen suggestions in posts and articles that it is possible to output static Web pages from FMP, but haven't found any concrete information as to how to actually go about it.

I have a friend who can get around in FMP 6 on the Mac well enough to create a product catalog--a layout that contains a product name, description, item number, photo, etc. He would like to be able to output static Web pages that preserve this layout. We would then ftp those to our hosting server along with the images.

One advantage he sees is being able to use the same layout for Web pages and also for paper sales sheets, the difference being that there are both low and hi-res jpeg databases, so he can print out a sheet with a hi-res photo or output a Web page with the lo-res version.

We do not want to host a site using FMP, purchase a server or advanced edition, etc., and our FMP skills are pretty limited.

My suggestion to him was to "print" the lo-res page to a PDF file using Actobat PDFWriter or Distiller, then upload the PDF to use as a Web page, but obviously there are some drawbacks, like visitors' browser configuration problems and file size issues that make PDF's less than ideal for the Web.

Any suggestions or sources anyone can suggest will be appreciated. Thanks.

Dave

Garry Claridge · June 9, 2005

In FM6 you can export records as an HTML table. This can then be included in a full HTML page.

You could also use Instant Web Publishing (IWP) and from the web-browser do a "Save page...". You will then be able to upload this page to your web-site.

Good Luck.

Garry

Steve T. · June 9, 2005

Howdy, Dave! I don't think you can do what you want but Garry's IWP suggestion is probably the closest you can come (but I would think there would be a problem with images). It's probably more trouble than you want to go through and I'm not even sure it would work, anyway, but you MIGHT be able to turn FM into a web page generator by designing your desired page in a program like Dreamweaver, GoLive, PageMill, etc. and then use FM to store the <html> in text fields. You can then export your html and data together into a text file which would be the equivalent of an html file.

FOR EXAMPLE:

field1="<html>"

field2="<h2>Welcome to Our Sales Sheet Web Page</h2>"

field3="<p>Your total comes out to be </p>"

total=subtotal+tax

field4="<p>Thank you for visiting our site.</p>"

field5="</html>"

You would then export field1, field2, field3, total, field4, field5 as a text file called webpage.html and then upload that to your web server. If you don't know <html> you could copy/paste the code from one of the programs I mentioned or have someone make it for you. You could also include images this way <IMG SRC="images/mylogo.gif">. The main issue is making the template page, but that's easy for web people to do, or possibly you could do it yourself or have a friend do it. If not, there's pros right here in the forums who could do it for you for peanuts if you supply them with a PDF of the desired layout or the db itself. I'd do it for you but I don't want to take away business from these helpful folks who do this for a living. Plus, you may want them to do the db <html> stuff if you're not comfortable with it, either.

Sorry it's not what you wanted to hear but I think you can still get what you want; setting it up will just be a little harder than you thought.

--ST

Dave Roblit · June 9, 2005

Thanks for these suggestions. I'm going to check them out.

Dave

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Output FMP Layout to Static Web Page

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