Does anyone know of a way to get simple printouts of defined tables and scripts?

By simple, I mean a line-by-line listings, not the interpreted versions you get when you select the ScriptMaker Print option, for example. I've used FileMaker for over a year now and this has been a major point of frustration.

If there is no direct way, are scripts stored anywhere that they can be externally referenced? Or if the script Print output is vectored into a text file, is there a utility to parse the file and reconstruct the original lines?

So far, I've used two simplistic methods: 1. pasting screen copies together, which, needless to say, is a tedious process and 2. disabling all steps in the script, printing it, and then reenabling them. Neither gives the result I'm seeking.

Thanks for any suggestions.

... So what's wrong with the scriptMaker printing?... It's not really an interpretation, it's just the script.

Regarding scripts, what I'm seeking is a simple one-to-one correspondence with what's displayed on the screen. ScriptMaker Print, for example, takes something like:

Go to Record/Request/Page [First]

and turns it into:

Go to Record/Request/Page

[First]

... two lines, where there's one on the screen. I'm simply seeking a classic WYSIWYG listing of exactly what I typed in.

Printing database tables, of course, always results in two lines per field; I'm looking for a one-line-per-field format with about 60 lines on a page. Given how things print normally, you might call what I'm seeking a condensed format.

Print In Landscape?

What's the use of printing a condensed format? It's not like you can double click on the paper to see what the rest of the script step says...

Below is a prime example of what I'm trying to find a way around ... a 9-line script squeezed into 14 lines by FileMaker.

Even knowing why they chose such a format wouldn't change me away from wanting a simple listing of what I typed. FileMaker is the only application I've ever used where I can't get that as a standard result.

Have you tried printing to a text-only printer driver? I believe the format is a little better. If you could capture it all in one text field, ie then import that text into FM, you might also be able to parse it. I haven't tried this however ... :wink2:

Actually, I did try that this very afternoon -- with poor results. My several-page database resulted in an 84-page file, 90% of which was carriage returns (or line feeds). Worse, there were 84 sets of header, date and page info lines interleaved with the content.

As a last resort, it looks like I'll be printing as a PDF, then cutting what I want from that file and pasting into a document file -- where I'll be able to get just the formatting I want. I did a test with one table and it's not too terrible of a task. It just feels like such a waste of time to have to work at such a low level with such a "high-tech" package.

But thanks for making the suggestion.