I have recently taken on a project which has introduced me to FileMaker, though there is no one with much experience on the program so the minimal knowledge I do have has come from the User's Guide, the Help section in the program itself, playing around with the program itself, and reading old topics in this forum. The User's Guide is not much help as I am not terribly computer savvy.

At present, I am trying to create a layout/table (not sure which word is accurate here) in my database for donations. On this layout/table I need the top section to have information like the Purveyor, Donating Organization, etc, then the bottom to have a table (not in the FileMaker sense of the word) with a variable number of rows. When setting up the layout, I use the Columnar List/Report Layout.

This is what I have created, as viewed in Layout Mode:

The problem I encounter is that each Purveyor can only donate one item. I need to be able to enter a varied amount of items, anything from 1-100 or so. If I try copy+pasting the fields, it of course just creates an exact duplicate so when I enter "7" in the top Quantity field, all Quantity fields down the column say 7.

The other problem I encounter is best described by the following screenshots of three dummy records:

Each record is showing the single row of information entered on each record. Example, Kendra donated the soggy waffle, Jenn doanted the gummy bear, and Jana donated the kittens.

I've tried to describe this as best I can. Please let me know if I've made something unclear. Judging from what I've told you, how can I accomplish the type of layout I want?

Thank you in advance!

You will need additional tables. The donation line items should have its own table and it can be displayed through a portal. You would probably want to use a form rather than a list view so that the top part contains the general donation info and below it a portal of all the items that were donated.

Also, see if this post helps.

donation table thread

Thank you! Your help has offered some insight, though I'm still having difficulties getting things to work just right. One moment I feel I have a breakthrough, the next I realize I'm just looking at the same problem from a different angle.

I'll be taking another crack at it on Monday.

Thanks again =D