Print Number of Pages Based on Field?

[Jerremy]

Hello all.

I don't see how I can do this in my database, so I hope you can help.

We have reports file. In this file, we have reports that are as short as 1 page, to as long as 14 pages. I have made a calc field that determines the number of pages used. However, if one of our users finds 15 records (reports) they need to print, it takes them a long time... They have to click to each record and print pages 1 to x, then go to the next record, and so on.

Is it possible to script this process? I can't seem to find how to set the page values in the print window based on a value from the record being printed... I could then loop this, and they will have their 1 click - print all records button.

Any Ideas?

Thanks!

Jerremy

[danjacoby]

Find the records you want to print, then print -- choose "records being browsed" in the print setup box, instead of "current record", and print all pages. Then grab a cup of coffee.

[Jerremy]

Thanks for you quick reply!

That is not the issue though.

They way I have set this database up is that each report (it's an inspection report) is on 1 record. The layout to do this report on spans 14 pages. The report may only use 1 of the 14 pages. The next report may use 10... and so on.

So, if we find, say, 10 reports to print, all of -different- page lengths, you have to print each report individually - or you end up with TONS of wasted paper... If they just print without setting the page length, you get 10 reports that are 14 pages long, when they reports may only be 1 page long...

I would like to use the calc field that tells the users how many pages the report is to fill in the print window.

Thanks for any ideas.

Jerremy

[Vaughan]

Use the "sliding/printing" feature in the Format menu, with "reduce enclosing part" option selected. This will shrink-fit the layout to the amount of text in the fields.

It takes a bit of fiddling to get it to work: select the fields in the body part then do the sliding/printing command. The results only appear when previewed or printed, not in browse mode.

[Jerremy]

Thanks for the idea... But that won't work either.

I need these reports to look just as they do in the layout... I just need some way to set the number of pages printed based on that calc field I have set up. I can't believe that there is no way to do this in FM....

Any more ideas out there?

Thanks for your help!

Jerremy

[LiveOak]

How you do this will depend on exactly what is on your layout. It's not exactly clear what you mean by "reports of different page lengths". I think you mean "different data content". If you just have a bunch of fields that are not filled in or data you don't care to see, it will take some effort to make this happen.

If you don't want to print areas of the report with fields not filled in, you will need to modify the report to make everthing displayed in the body field data. All titles, lines, separators, etc. will need to be displayed using calculated fields (number, text, container or whatever). The field titles, etc. would only display if the corresponding fields contain data. Then the sliding/printing feature could eliminate the blank space when nothing is displayed on these pages.

Another approach is to use 14 different printing layouts with between 1-14 pages. You would need to print a set of records in a looping script one at a time. Each print job would select which layout to use based upon some critera that would hopefully be automatically determined.

-bd

[Jerremy]

-bd, super genius.

That worked great! (creating the print layouts to switch to based on my pages used calc field.)

Also a good lesson... I locked my thinking into changing the pages to print in the print dialog...

Thanks to all for their ideas.

Jerremy