Printing an Invoice

[spongebob]

Hi,

Id like to print an invoice but of course it can be 1 page, 2 pages, 3 pages and so on depending on the size of the invoice. I have much FM printing experience.

Whats crucial i think is how I represent the lines of the invoice. I'm thinking of an approach where I could either use repeating fields or a portal for the lines/items on the Bill.

Here are some lines:

bananas 10 $2.00 $20.00

apples 10 $1.00 $10.00

etc

There are 2 Problems.

(1) First, I want the pages to stop printing on the last page necessary.

With repeating fields this is hard. If I have 90 long repeating field, and only lines up until 45 are filled in on the Bill, without sliding, it prints all the 90 ie all the empties as well of course which I dont want as that wastes huge amounts of paper at the end.

If I slide the repeating field up however, FM moves things up the way I want BUT, it also removes all the empty lines between the filled lines (ie line 1 and 45) and scrunches the lot together which I DONT want either. (The customer leaves empty lines between the entries for better reading on purpose.)

I think using a portal to represent the lines of the bill could work, but its a bit non-elegant to make a bill and keep the contents of it in several places I think so Im slightly against that idea.

2) On the last page of the bill, AT THE BOTTOM, I want to put stuff regarding the tax, payment conditions, total etc. However if I slide the things above, I may end up with the total line at the top of the page. How can that be remedied?

Surely Im not the first to make a Bill in Filemaker ? :

Thanks for any Tipps!

[efen]

Best not to use either portals or repeating fields to print.

See this post for some useful information:

http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/212349/post/345921/

[Ted S]

This is one of the most often asked questions from people new to Filemaker. The answer in a nutshell is to build your form based on the INVOICE LINES and then include the related INVOICE HEADER. It's counterintuitive at first but build you layout from the lines and include the header. Right now you are trying to start with the header and include the lines. Come at it from the other direction.