We created a runtime soltuion many years ago which we distributed. We are in the process of updating it with Filemaker Pro Advanced 13. I have done a lot of modifications over the last few months, and one the new features which has been scripted in multiple forms to be able to create PDFs, append to PDFs (gather reports together to create one pdf), create attachments etc...

 

I did not realize till yesterday that when you create the runtime app you lose the functionality of saving as pdfs due to Filemaker not wanting to license. My bad, didn't even think that would be an issue . This s a huge issue. I need to find a solution. Is there a plugin that would allow us to do this in a runtime (I looked at fmbutler which I'll experiment with). I saw on one site, to include the filemaker license in with the solution. But that would make it more complicated then simply installing our program.

 

Ideas, suggestions would be very much welcomed.

 

Caroline

 

Another plugin is MBS:

http://www.monkeybreadsoftware.de/filemaker/

 

On the plus side, you'll gain access to a ton of other functions.

There are two possible routes you could explore - neither of them are trivial though.

 

Using 360 Works Scriptmaster Plug-in with the iText library would allow you to create and manage PDF files, which I think is similar to the approach you would need with the MonkeyBread Plug-in that @Fitch suggests.  With these plug-ins you would have to build the PDF pages from scratch, it's not possible to render them directly from a Filemaker layout, which is what the Save as PDF function does.

 

The other possibilty is to look at a PDF printing product such as CutePDF, which acts as a virtual printer but produces PDF files rather than printed pages. However this would mean installing this as a separate entity which may not suit the way you want to distribute the run-time.

 

Brian