Has FM fixed the print fault in 7?

[onefish]

Well I think most people are aware that filemaker 7 can't change printers on a windows machine even though it is supposed to. Everyone except the Filemaker help line techos in Australia that is. Has anyone found a suitable work around. The redistribution license for the only real plugin to fix this problem is rediculously expensive. I have found a suitable way to print to pdf and have the document open as the front window. I intend to use it as a print preview that can be saved or printed if required (through the pdf viewer). This is a good way to get around the margins of various printers that users are likely to have and it's kind of handy as well. It's all accomplished with free software under GP license and the scripts are executables. Works really well until filemaker reverts back to windows default printer (the second print run!). The distiller cannot be the windows default printer as the directory it saves to is cleared by an external script when filemaker closes and without the file rename/open external script initiated by Filemaker through send event, the file is overwritten by the next print. I will muck around with changing the registry settings for the default printer to the distiller at the beginning of the print/move/open script and then back to the previous printer when finished but I'm unfamiliar with this and a bit hesitant. Has anybody else found a better way? (other than a $670-$1000 plugin) I only want to print to the distiller from filemaker and never the default windows printer.

[onefish]

Come to think of it, I believe Filemaker gets the default printer settings when the application is launched. After changing the default printer, I had to close and reopen FM before it would use the new one in a script step. This means I will have to use an executable script to change the default printer to the distiller, then launch the FM runtime application, pause a couple of seconds and then change the default printer back to the previous printer. I was planning to use the executable to launch the runtime app anyway to control the window size and position, heck maybe even a splash screen! It may not be necessary to change the printer for every print if the app was opened with the correct printer chosen as default. Any thoughts?

[dkemme]

The printer defaults only change if the user selects print, then the cancel button. Filemaker is working and solultion forthcoming, I don't know how soon though.

[onefish]

No fix yet What a bummer! If I can get this external script functioning properly I'll post the whole print to PDF solution here. I am talking about changing the windows default printer before launching the filemaker application and then changing the windows default printer back. I will carry out some more tests but I believe filemaker loads the default printer settings when the application is launched. If FM is launched with the PDF distiller as the windows default printer all printing from FM should be to the distiller. This suites my application but does not allow for changing printers during a user session. It's a little bit of mucking around and there is a good plugin that will enable printing to PDF within script steps and open the printed document, etc. This particular project is a freebe though and I cannot afford to spend too much of my own $$$ on plugins to get the result.

[onefish]

Hey, even better, does anybody out there know which dll filemaker stores the windows default printer in and the correct syntax to script changing it? Go straight to the source of the problem!

[dkemme]

I've heard that fmbutler might help, but I've never tried and have no knowledge about the plugin.