Container - PDF

[abomb]

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to link a pdf file with my database. I have not used a container field before and am not sure I like the results. I guess I am looking on opinions as to which option is better. I need to track steel plate in our inventory. Each plate has a heat code and a document that shows its origin and properties. This document proves its chemical and physical makeup and is very important. Anyway, right now it is saving it directly into the database. My question is will this require to much storage space? Will this slow down the program? In a year or two there could be thousands of these items in the database.

Thanks.

[John Mark Osborne]

The PDF will take up as much space as the file takes up on the hard drive. FileMaker 7 has a theoretical upper limit file size of 8 terabytes but I still think it would be better to store the PDFs as a reference. With this approach, you can update the PDFs and they won't need to be relinked to the database. Also, you can double-click on a referenced PDF container field and open the PDF in your default application. The only issue to watch is your paths for multi-user scenarios. You want to make sure the path stored in the container field can be seen by each user on the network. In other words, they need to be able to mount the volume storing the PDFs. Also, don't store the PDFs on the FileMaker Server machine. Store them on a file server.

[abomb]

"Also, you can double-click on a referenced PDF container field and open the PDF in your default application."

This is the way I thought would be best, but I can't seem to get the PDF to open from the container field. I think I'm inserting it correct. It stores a pdf looking file in the field, but when I double click, it does not open.

"You want to make sure the path stored in the container field can be seen by each user on the network. In other words, they need to be able to mount the volume storing the PDFs. "

I'm sorry but I don't know what you mean by "seen" or "mount the volume storing the PDFs." I'm not the one in charge of the network, and don't know much about it. Could you get me a bit more detail or are these things my IT guy should understand.

[abomb]

Nevermind, I figured it out. Thank you for the help.