Serious Issue

[Genx]

... ive experienced this before .. but i just put it down to a corrupted file... its not... unless ive been unknowngily working on 5 different corrupted files... ANYWAY moving on to the problem...

It occurs in large calc fields that return text or large text fields in general...

When i preview everything looks fine and great and what not... when i print, random blocks of text on random lines, will sometimes just disappear... maybe the cow stole them but i dont care, this is killing me... i cant supply a solution with a problem that I dont know the solution to... cause then its not really a solution you know... its just an extra problem ... sigh so frustrated

anyway, its not the font cause its Times New Roman.. i thought it may have been a custom font size but not that either...

... Theres no extra formatting attached to the field...

Problem knowingly occurs in fm 7 and fm8v1 and v2... (5 seperate solutions.. same problem) and on various different machines

SOMEONE... ANYONE, please help...

Genx

[Reed]

Can you post an example file where this happens? then you can see if it's specific to your setup or if everyone sees the same thing.

[Genx]

not really... they're pretty much complete solutions...

[Reed]

I mean just make a new file with similar fields/characteristics and see if the problem is still there. If the problem is not there anymore just compare what's different about your new file and the old one, and keep making them more similar until the problem appears. Once you can reproduce the problem, then post the file and see if others see it as well...

[Genx]

cheers, ill try that and get back to this topic

[Vaughan]

What printers are causing the problems?

[Genx]

... the one at home... samsung laser scx something or over... some completly different and very large printer at work.. i never bothered to note the brand, and another inkjet (epson something or other)...

point is, they are all completely different but all produce the same results... im going to try and experiment with the order of the layout objects and see if it helps...

cheers, genx

[AnFrusch@pepp]

Hello,

sometimes it happens when the text alignement is justify (try a classic left alignement).

Bye.

[Genx]

... yes it is set to justify... but i cant have this in any other format... maybe ill try justifying it through a calc field, thanks for that...

genx

[Oldfogey]

genx, Though I'd throw in my tuppenceworth.

I used justify today, for the first time ever. No choice. It's a custom size font; no choice again.

Part of the third line refused to print. I tried cutting and pasting the paragraph concerned; no effect. Also tried moving some of the line breaks; no effect and it wouldn't even re-justify. What I did eventually was delete the text and paste in a copy from the original (Word) document. Works fine. Bit tricky in a calc field, though. Sorry about that.

Even worse, I spoke too soon! Some aliens came in and messed up my field and I had to re-copy the text. Now the first word of the first line in the second paragraph prints but the rest of the line is blank. Otherwise fine and anyway I don't have to deliver it until the 11th of February. :titanic:

Edited February 9, 2006 by Guest
Break bad news.

[Genx]

yeh, i tried everything... no solution that i can see so i reported it to fm, we'll see if they come up with anything...

genx

[Oldfogey]

Guess what! Mine is fixed. I deleted the field from the layout and then replaced it. So far so good, even with a couple of graphics added below the text field.

[Genx]

... hmmm, yeh i think it may be the fields position in the layout... i.e. i think it might have to be at the front... but i cant really be stuffed testing my theory at the moment so ill repost in a few days...

genx

[Oldfogey]

This gets better and better. I accidentally deleted my layout. Re-made it and got a different line vanishing!

Am in full-bore panic mode, so dumped 'Justify'. No problems. (Customer might grizzle but ....)

My text is a whole page copied/pasted from MS Word. In playing about, I found a heap of odd spacer characters which, I suspect were left over from the Word justification.

[Genx]

I have been able to recreate the situation. Please find attached a pdf file and completely new database. I have found no pattern to the problem except that the field that is justified is a calculation field that references the normal text field with a standard calculation.

The same results have been achieved with the text pasted from MS word, notepad, completely re-written.

Around 5% of all records turn out like this. Though they usually seem to be of a longer length rather than a shorter one....

~Genx

New_DB.zip

[Genx]

Scrap the calculation fact, i moved the text field around the layout and i get the same effect though on a different line....

~Genx

[Oldfogey]

Genx,

Believe me, get rid of justify! I know it doesn't look the best but it's better than missing parts of a line.

I tried just about everything and nothing solved the problem until I got rid of justify.

If you must have justify, have you thought of this kludge? Create a PDF of your original text and display/print it in a Container field.

My problem was completely random also.

By the way, I have another, vaguely similar problem which seems to occur primarily on lasers.

[Genx]

Oh yeh, look, i just thought i should bring the issue into light. As minor as it may seem, justify can make or break a design, though i have started to work around it.

I've reported the problem over the phone to tech support. They were going to try to make me run recoveries etc. on my file, but i managed to replicate my issue so... yay. Maybe we will see a fix for this problem thats been hanging around since fm 7 at least.

Anywho, I've just turned to using left justify of late, no problems with that though it doesn't look as professional as it could. In the mean time, seeing as i have no real choice, i will have to continue to do this - though hopefully like i said they might just fix it.

Cheers,

~Genx

[Genx]

Oldfogey,

Whats the problem you've been having with your lasers? I have 3 lasers in the office and one at home, no real issues with any of them.

~Genx

[Oldfogey]

Not a problem with lasers but a problem that seems to show up on lasers.

Unlike the missing partial line/lines problem, I have pages missing the right hand half of the whole page and, in one case, about 1/8th of the page at the top RH corner.

FMP suggested corrupted file - go back to last good copy, etc., etc. and re-build. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea when that was becuase I do not get the problem - just my customer.

The problem is totally random - well, not quite. It occurs on some reports only and, generally, around 1 time in 10-15. Eventually, I thought I'd narrowed it down to having non-printing buttons in the Header. Removed these and the problem went away; until it occurred on one report with no Header, just one big non-printing box. Removing the n-p box didn't solve the problem so I've re-created the layout and am waiting for news.

Don't fret. I posted the problem way back and seem to the only person who has struck it.

[coconutt2000]

Did either of you try printing using a generic printer driver versus the proprietary drivers?

How about printing to a file? Does the problem appear when you print into a PDF?

I'm just curious. This is an interesting problem and I wonder if the problem lies in the way FM handles writing the documents to the printer or how the printer reads the document. Perhaps a problem with the printer definition files, or the postscript drivers.

[Genx]

See the PDF in my file attached... in one of the previous posts called New DB or something.

~Genx

[coconutt2000]

It could just be because I'm using a Mac, but using the example file, I can't duplicate the problem.

Previews and printing work perfectly to my Brother laser, as well as into a PDF.

I'd be really suspicious of the postscript system if I were in your position. Or if more Windows XP users all have the same problem, then it could be a bug in FM for Windows or Windows XP.

[Genx]

I'm fairly sure that the problem isn't applicable to Mac (I've seen someone elses hard copies from a mac system with the text justified)... But yeah, I've been able to replicate this on multiple XP systems, (v7, v8, dev, adv), different files... But, I have reported this to FileMaker Tech Support over the phone, and sent them the file, I've got to call them about something else re server, but i'll triple check that they got my sample file.

Thanks for listining

Cheers guys,

~Genx

[Vic Russell]

Hi,

did you ever get to the bottom of your missing text?

We've just upgraded from FM6 to 8 and are finding the same problem in text fields and calculation fields that printed perfectly well prior to the uograde. We seem to experience it apparently randomly with about the same frequency.

We'd come to the conclusion that left justifying everything would help but with a large database and thousands of layouts I don't fancy going through them one by one. Any global solutions? Did FM Tech Support ever recognise the problem?

Vic

[Genx]

Did they ever recognise it?

Not exactly... I'm in the middle of exams at the moment but its on my post-exam whinge list.

I'll make them at least recognise it one way or another.

Any global solutions... not exactly, you'll be stuck going to each of your printable layouts and changing them. Pain in the butt this whole deal is but oh well.

~Genx

[Vic Russell]

Oh well - let me know if you find a solution.

Good luck with the exams

Vic

[Norvin]

~Genx

Been keeping my eye this post, wondering if you have heard anything from FM or if you’ve hit on a solution. This has been a real problem for my company too. Only full justification will do. Thanks for your efforts and everyone else in this matter.

BTW, hope exams went well for you.

Nor

Edited August 15, 2006 by Guest

[ralph.nusser]

Mr. Fabrice Ricker, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

fabrice.ricker [AT] gmx.net

is the pixel doctor who helps solving layout problems. He has published several articles in the German FileMaker Magazin:

Fabrice Ricker, „FileMaker 7 unter Druck“ [FileMaker 7 in printing]; FMM 2004/03, page 10 ff

Fabrice Ricker, „Und er druckt doch (Teil 1)“ [it's possible to print, part 1]; FMM 2002/04, page 11 ff

Fabrice Ricker, „Und er druckt doch (Teil 2)“ [it's possible to print, part 2]; FMM 2002/05, page 21 ff

Fabrice Ricker, „Und er druckt doch (Teil 3)“ [it's possible to print, part 3]; FMM 2003/01, page 4 ff

Homepage of the German FileMaker Magazin

In the next edition of the German FileMaker Magazin there will be an article how Mr. Fabrice Ricker helped me to change a layout to print a product catalog with FileMaker 8.0v3 [problem of lost product lines]

PDF of the 120 page catalog

Only the very first page and the very last page were not printed out of FileMaker.

Happy FileMaking Ralph Nusser

Edited August 29, 2006 by Guest

[rosey]

I hope this helps someone.

I was having this problem as well with version 7.0v3 but noticed that others in the office running 7.0v1 were not having this problem. So I downgraded to v1 and that fixed the problem for me.

Also as a work around you should be able to reword your sentance to fix the problem.

Cody

[Genx]

Right, sorry

I completely forgot this post...

I've come to deeply dislike FM support and no they never did get back to me about this issue...

I'm guessing they recognize it, but because it only affects 40% of their clients - if they use justify, they couldn't give a rats...

[R Newman]

Just joined this forum looking for answers and found this post. I too am experiencing this problem. Printing 1000 reports containing justifed text field. Windows XP, FM 8.5 advanced, Font Times Roman, font size 12pt. What happens is that lines that have a large number of words that fit the line length when unjustified tend to print with just the first word showing and the rest of the line blank when printed justified. It seems as if the justifiactioin algorithm can't cope and just truncates the line when sending to the printer. Tried various laser printers with both PCL and postcript drivers and also pdf printer. All give the same behaviour, so I think it is down to FM.

It works fine when left justified, but doesn't look as nice. Tried using righrt indent of 3px. This cures the lines that are missing, but generates different lines that are missing. I'm sure the issue is to do with the length of the line and the number of words (and hence spaces) in it. Other bodges that work on an individual record are manually adding extra spaces, but this is not practical over 1000 records.

Hope someone or FM can come up with an answer soon. Till then Justified printing from FM cannot be relied upon.

[Terrible Toll]

I've got this problem too. The client wants justified text, it works fine on my Mac, but on their system even though the Preview looks OK the PDFs and printouts drop the odd line, usually after the first word.

Change it to Range left and it works fine.

Come on FileMaker - lets get this sorted!

Anatole