Crazy thought and idea. I am a printer, and I am trying to build a quote database in Filemaker 8 Adv.

My crazy idea is... we deal with paper, maybe a 12 x 18 sheet of paper. We print, maybe a 8.5 x 11 sheet 2 up on the paper. Can you think of anyone to graphically display the paper and show 2 pages up on the sheet. With this, if the sheet size changed... or the page size went to say 3.5 x 2 (business Card) could it display 20 up on a sheet.

Basically some kind of visual reference for the estimating department. Can't think of any great way to acheive this in filemaker.

Many advance thanks for your thoughts and input on this.

Mike

Could export to xml and reformat to an html table using xslt --> This would allow variable cell and row sizes so you could mock up pretty much anything you wanted, but then it does require a bit of knowledge of both xsl and html. If either Wim or Fenton are browsing through here, maybe suggest some code? - i'm really not confident with xsl enough yet to be able to do that.

I'm not quite sure what Mike wants to see. I'm even less sure what FileMaker data we're talking about. I can think of ways to take FileMaker 20 records, and spread them out on a "contact sheet" layout.

FileMaker did this in its Photo Catalog template (version 7); by creating a layout with columns (Layout, Printing). Then going into Preview mode, which shows the columns as they would print, Copy, go to a layout with a big global container field, in Browse mode, and Paste. Seems a clunky, but it works. You could use a regular container instead of a global, to keep the "view" for that job.

It could also be done by showing records in portals, each with only 1 record. Portal 1 shows record 1, portal 2 shows record 2, etc..

But until I know what FileMaker data we're talking about I can't quite visualize it. I am not a printer. I don't even know exactly what this statement means, in terms of FileMaker:

"we deal with paper, maybe a 12 x 18 sheet of paper. We print, maybe a 8.5 x 11 sheet 2 up on the paper"

Technically, couldn't we do this with labels?

Mike,

My take on what you need is for visual representation of the layout not of the job.

A second table that consist of a field for the description of the paper/layout and a container field for a TIFF of the simple layout (done with Quark or Indesign) should do the job. Make a relation for the tables based on the description.

Your Estimators layout screens should link the description needed for the estimation to the description in this table and then display the linked container field.

By the way that second table would be a good place to store your costs or your default markups for that kind of job.

As Genx said, technically this is possible but take a look at this thread

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/170643/post/179341/hl//#179341

where a discussion about a similiar (if not the same) topic took place.

Ender did a fine job developing the calcs that came out of that discussion but even he did not take up the challenge of giving a graphic representation of the same.

I have been working on an estimating system for small offset for 2 years now. What you are asking for would be nice but there are so many other things to get your head around that I would put this on your 'wish list' for now

HTH

Phil