Allowing a Record to Break

[deckard]

I have been unable to figure this out, so I am appealing for help to the great FMers here.

I have a database with 10 records in it. Nine of the fields are small standardized lengths (10-30 characters) but the tenth varies widely (300-30,000 characters, for example). I have created a layout with the smaller fields at the top and the generally-large field at the end.

The problem: if necessary, I would like the final field to break at the end of a column and finish at the top of the next column. Equally nice would be the ability to let a record itself to break so that a field(s) that wouldn't fully fit in one column to finish in the next column.

So far I have been unable to convince Filemaker to do this. It seems to insist that each record remain one unit, resulting in large blank spaces beneath smaller records because a larger record would not fit entirely beneath it.

I am aware of the "sliding" functions, but they don't seem to work as I need them to... or do they?

Thanks for any help.

[Moon]

What you would like FileMaker to do is to create threaded columns whic is easy in Word, PageMaker, Quark, and other heavy hitter page layout programs. Alas, FileMaker doesn't have a way I have discovered or read about it to do it. Big, BIG text fields are problematic when printed. Setting the big text field to slide up and reduce enclosing parts will solve the big blank areas in records with a small amount of text, but page breaking can really be a bear in fields with a lot of text. I have gotten around the whole mess when text fields have the potential to spill to several pages by scripting an export to a Merge Text document and using Word to create the master word merge file with merge metacharacters appropriately entered to pull in the exported data.

I hope somebody else has a better solution,as I am not fond of (a) using several apps to do a FileMaker job, or (: using any Microshaft product at all. My prejudice is showing.

[deckard]

Thanks for the response.

I too had considered exporting to Word, but I figured there must be some way to have FMP do it. Plus, I wasn't entirely sure how to export and keep the specific formating and layout.

Anyone know if it is possible to stick with FMP?