Viewing and accessing PDF files.

[Stephen2]

Please excuse me if this is a basic question.

I work for a homebuilder and we are trying to make a database of all our paper documents (contracts, houseplans, etc.) saved as Adobe Acrobat PDF documents. We would like to be able to find and view the pdf documents from the Filemaker database. (Eventualy we would then like to make this avilable to our off-site employees over the web.)

How do I include a "link" to the pdf file from the database to be able to find and view the document? What may be the best way to organize this?

I'm using Filemaker Pro 5 and Acrobat 5 on a Powermac G4.

I'm just starting to learn this so please include as many details as possible.

Thank you very much!

[Jeff Spall]

I think the best way is to build it as a web-based interface from the start, then you can do these things easily:

store your .pdf files in a series of folders on the server

add an

[Jeff Spall]

Hi Stephen,

I took a look at your database and it's quite a straightforward one to put into a web format - no relationships to relationships or long scripts!

My thoughts based on the way we've been using filemaker on the web here are:

the home page can work very much as it does now, but to save having to change it as you add/finish developments, you could make a popup menu based on a value list for "developments". If you ever need to find by customer, or to find available units, you could make that a separate search.

Your search could deliver a very similar page to the one it does now and still click through to the full details. You can make them read only or let people amend them as you wish.

I think I have a bit more of an idea about the structure of the palns and documents now. What I think I would do is to have a server volume where I'd make a folder for each development and inside that a folder for each plot. Inside each of those a "drawings", "selections", "documents" folder, and I'd load the right .pdf files into each one. When you clicked the link button, I'd use filemaker fields embedded in the "HREF" action to open a small window showing the relevent files to download - I have a little javascript window thing that works well for this.

the code would look something like:

<A HREF="javascript :openAWindow('ftp://username :[email protected]/pdf_files/[FMP-field: development]/'[FMP-field:

subplot]/drawings/,'win2',375,300,0)">

(there's a script code that goes in the page head to make it work)

This would give you quite a nice, functional web database that you could build on to add stuff like a file upload function at a later stage and little refinements like changing the colour of the available plots (easy!) and bringing in pictures on the detail page (even easier!)

Dunno how much help you want or need with this - I'm not a consultant, just doing FMP on the web for our own company use - but I'm happy to sned you some coded pages if you need them

Regards, Jeff

PS that line of code comes out with little graemlin widgets on the forum pages !!!

[ May 18, 2001: Message edited by: Jeff Spall ]

[ May 18, 2001: Message edited by: LiveOak ]