I'm new to FMP 8 Advanced and puzzled about saving a runtime file. I want to save as a blank file, but when I do, then the original runtime file is blank, or vice versa. How do I make new copies of the runtime without it copying the original runtime file?

Thanks for your help.

Save As Clone, then close the original, and open the clone and whirl it thru the binder...

--sd

Not sure why you want to save it as an empty file BUT...

I always work from the original file(s). When I'm ready to make a runtime, I copy this and run a script on the copy which empties the file of all records. I can then use the new copy to make a runtime which can be copied easily.

(I also usually do a file maintenance to reduce the size of the files.)

Here's the deal. I'm making a grade book in runtime. The teacher (user) will need to duplicate this 5 or maybe 7 times--all with different information--so it needs to be something the user can do and not the developer.

Thanks again.

Can we go back a step? You wanted an empty file but now you say the different copies will have different information in them.

BTW 'empty' is ambiguous in this context; do you mean no records or no data (ie empty records)? I am guessing at a combination. Do you want some data/records kept and some (like student name) to be empty to start with? If so, write a script to delete the data/records you don't want kept. You can run the script before or after you duplicate the whole runtime. Either way, you then end up with an empty DB you can copy ad nauseam.