Printing problems mac-Pee Cee

[Wade]

I set up a printing script on a mac and everything works fine on every mac in my shop, but the PC's ignore the script and print all pages instead of the correct ones.

do scripts and restore page setup not work from mac to pc?

i am using FM Pro 5.5 on all machines

thanks

Wade

[Vaughan]

I've noticed this (a bummer if ever there was in solution portability). In one solution that relied heavily on Page Setup being correct I store the name of the printer used for the page setup, and compare it to the current printer name. If they are different I force the user to do a Page Setup.

[Kurt Knippel]

Are they printing to the same printers?

Generally in all environments you need to specify the page/print options for each platform/printer combination seperately.

For instance you would test for the platform and the printer and then run the appropriate setup scripts. (i.e. Mac/LaserJet, Mac/InkJet, Windows/LaserJet, Windows/InkJet and so on...)

[Wade]

Yes, everyone is printing to the same printer. The problem is that on macs, if I set the following options:

Page Vertical

Print current record

the macs will follow this script no matter how their page setup is set when the script button is pressed.

PC's will print also but will use what ever page setup is currently in use on the PC and will ignore the script.

How do I get the PC's to follw the script and restore the page setup to the options that I want? I don't want to print "all records being browsed" I want to print "Current Record".

Do I just have to incororate a dialog box on PC's that comes up and tells them they are resopnsible for setting their own printing options?

Very frustrating!

thanks

Wade

[Kurt Knippel]

All that Filemaker does is to save the current page setup settings. Those settings will work *correctly* only with a specific printer driver, the one that they were created with. In this case the Mac laser printer (probably LaserWriter 8).

You need to basically do the same thing on the Windows side, then save that page setup in another script. Then test the platform and run the appropriate page setup script.

Same thing if you have multiple printers.

I forget this occassionally myself while developing and I curse and pull my hair out trying to figure why it will not correctly print, then I remember that it was set to print to LaserWriter8 and not the DeskJet (or PDF or whatever).

[DykstrL]

Print setups in FileMaker are similar to graphic images - FileMaker stores an image for each platform. The difference is, you must define a print setup for each platform. Once a script that has a 'Print Setup' defined, that script step must be 'reset' for each platform, manually setting the Print setup, then 'replace' the print setup for the script step in that script. Once it is defined, FileMaker will remember the setup.

If you are developing cross-platform applications, there is really no way around having one of each machine to do, if nothing else, print setups and definitions for each platform. It makes for much more elegant solution.

[Wade]

Thanks for all of the help!

I really don't mean to be dense but if I am working on a mac and setting print options in scripts, how do I set print options for a PC?

How do I write a separate Page setup for the PC when the script is being defined on a MAC?

I know i'm missing something basic here. but I just don't get it.

thanks

Wade

[BobWeaver]

You can't do a PC page setup on a Mac. You have to open the file on the PC, do page setup and do a replace page setup in the script options. If you have already done a page setup with a Mac, your script will now have both Mac and PC page setups saved. So then, depending on which platform you are running, Filemaker will use the appropriate page setup.

That's still not a guarantee that the same layout will work for both PC and Mac.

[Kurt Knippel]

quote:

---

Originally posted by BobWeaver:

If you have already done a page setup with a Mac, your script will now have both Mac and PC page setups saved. So then, depending on which platform you are running, Filemaker will use the appropriate page setup.

---

I would avoid this. Put the entire print setup into a seperate script. Then call the appropriate Platform/Printer page setup script from your main printing script.

This keeps confusion to a minimum and I can guarantee that you will get confused otherwise.