Matching portal box size with future contents.

[trinket]

I’m new to Filemaker. I use FilemakerPro 8 on an iMacG5 OSX. I have been able to successfully relate 3 tables (Customers, Line Items, and Invoice). I am stuck on how to get the Line Items into the Invoice layout. I have tried using a portal, but the number of rows in the portal that I set up may not correspond with the number of rows of line items that are to be viewed in the portal each time an new invoice is created. The problem is that some of the invoices that I write are for only one item, and some of the invoices show almost 100 line items…and anything in between. I realize that the number of rows in the portal can be changed, but switching to layout then changing the number of rows for each invoice is time consuming. I also realize that scroll bars can be used to view additional records that do not appear in available portal rows, but that is not helpful when printing the invoice for the customer. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps someone could suggest another way of doing this. Thank you.

[Inky Phil]

Hi Trinket and welcome to the forum.

Portals were never intended to be used for printing, merely as a viewing window.

Your best bet would be to print your invoice from the line items table.

That way you should not need to use a portal at all

HTH

Phil

[trinket]

Thank you. Suddenly your suggestion makes a light go off in my head.

[trinket]

Well, I abandoned using portals and tried a new approach. I set up a new Invoice layout. I went to Layout>Layout Set Up. This time, in the Layout Setup Box I selected "Show records from "Line Items". As I understand it, this new invoice layout will not need to bring in the line items from another related table now. (Other records such as "Customer Name" may need to come from a different but related table... but not the line items). Here's the problem. When I go to form view, I can still only see one record at a time ..can't add any more...even though the table view shows many line items. Sorry I'm still stuck here. Thanks for your help.

[comment]

You need to be in List view to see more than one record.

[trinket]

Yes, thank you, and that does work for scrolling on the screen. But I still need to put together a printable invoice to mail to my customers. The invoice would bring together things such as Customer Name, Address, etc. ... plus the list of items that they purchased from us. Thanks.

[dwins]

You can make an invoice using a subsummary layout and sort.

You''ll need to experiment to get the right proportion of header, subsummary and body part to make full pages with any number of line items.

Edited February 16, 2006 by Guest