Portal Printing

[Ronnie99]

I have a layout in my db with multiple portals.

I use the printing and sliding options to remove and slide up unwanted portals from the printed report.

When previewing the layout all looks well, however when printing it the text areas, i.e. filed labels, from the non printed portals still show in the print out.

Has anyone ese had this problem.

I have the same issue in 8.5 and now i have tried 9 and get the same.

[Vaughan]

Don't print portals.

Instead, print from the related table, as a list view. However this is difficult when two or more sets of related records are needed in the same report.

The only option in this case is to design the data strcture so the two protals are from the same table (not al;ways appropriate or possible) or to split the report in two.

This last option is not too bad now with FMP 9.0's ability to print multiple times to one pdf file.

[Ronnie99]

That is amazing when the output on screen in preview mode is perfect. Whay can filemaker not print just what it shows in preview?

If this is the case it still (in my opinion) renders filemaker a useless tool and one needs to build applications requiring any power in Access.

[Genx]

Not really, it's just a different environment. Access has its own reporting issues.

In any case, I don't necessarily agree with Vaughan when it comes to not printing portals, I mean if say ... a max of 100 related records isn't a problem and you just want to print the related info from multiple tables for one customer on one page, then why not...

Anyway, to your issue: You can cheat by putting a single row portal from the same related table as the content and put the headers for your portal in that row.

That way, if there are no related records, that portal row will not display and consequently nothing in that portal row will display (this includes those headers).

[Genx]

Thought I might illustrate the technique: http://www.filemakermagazine.com/blogs/aflgenx/filemaker-and-the-order-of-the-portal-printing-taboo-ers.html

[Paul Grogan]

I agree. Portal printing with a limited number of portal rows is useful and saves having to set up additional printing layouts. However this ability seems to have been dropped in FMP9 which does not print/show correctly using your example. Hopefully, this inability to slide portal rows will be corrected in future issues of FMP9