Printing Repeating Fields

[SteveB]

Also be aware than FM will only print the lines in a given repetition that are displayed on the layout - if a given rep has 10 lines of data, but only the 1st line is displayed, that is what will be printed.

[pradeep]

I have to Print Repeating fields of 20 repetions each which contain data as big as 3/4 of a Page.But when I set it show 20 reps it shows only 11.Is it necessary to have all the 20 repeating fields on the layout displayed to Print them or by dispaying 10 of 20 and give it to Print it will Print all.

Thank You

[LiveOak]

FM only prints what is showing on the layout. If you want to print 20 repetitions, you must show 20 repetitions on the layout.

-bd

[pradeep]

How do I do this then if I have to get 20 reps with part no and description printing one below the other.Both part no and desc are repeating fields and description might have 20 lines while partno only 1 line.Is this a limitation.I might use a portal but there are some things which gets done with repeating field like entry into calculation field using a entry field behind it.So I have to stick with this and I still can't get more than 11 repeats using sliding field.Please help.Also when I reduce the size of my description it cuts some part into the header of the next page and also some times goes into the footer.Please help.I am using sliding up based on all above with also reduce size of encloscing parts

Thank You

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: Jacob ]

[SteveB]

FM has real problems printing anything that doesn't display on a layout, including information that is in a field but needs to be scrolled to. Sliding and printing stink as techniques. If we were writing in a native language, we'd re-print the headings on each page, not cut fields apart and start on the next page. It's all pretty ugly!!!

The moderators will tell you to not use repeating fields, but they do have their uses (repeating fields that is, altho the mods are pretty good too), and the repeating fields are not the issue...what is the issue is that FM doesn't print anything that is not displayed.

My advice (& humble opinion) is to create a layout and fields that displays 'X' number of lines, and thru a script populate this layout with your data and hard carriage returns). This way you can count the number of lines and when you reach the max, start a new page. Its a fair amount of work, but you'll never get a decent looking report otherwise.

See my thread of about 1 week ago and Bob Weaver's reply when I posted this same type of problem (it wasn't about repeats, just fields that scrolled).

Be aware that FM seems to figure out how many characters of varying widths it can get into a given field line and then wraps the field without inserting any carriage returns. I wrote a couple of scripts that add the hard returns at word breaks and then counts the total number of lines. Its not perfect (all 'i's take up less space than all 'w's), but it works.

[ September 06, 2001: Message edited by: Steveinvegas ]