To do complicated layouts that normally would not be done in Filemaker

Being able to assign, name and move layers is a must.

Trying without it.. it's not easy.

 

7 hours ago, Michael J. Van Dyke said:

normally would not be done in Filemaker

The answer seems to be in the question...

14 hours ago, Michael J. Van Dyke said:

To do complicated layouts that normally would not be done in Filemaker

Being able to assign, name and move layers is a must.

Trying without it.. it's not easy.

 

 

This is the place to submit your ideas: https://community.filemaker.com/community/discussions/product-ideas

However, without knowing much as to the "why" of your request, I would say that "complicated layouts" equal potential performance /design problems...

Can you explain a bit more what you are trying to stuff into one layout?

OK.. I use filemaker for something its not really designed to do.

Page Layout of Catalogs  I am probably going to have to export the Data out

of Filemaker into InDesign.. and then I have total control.

Right not I make it work. but its tricky.  And changes 

are slow.. 

But if Filemaker would ad more features to its Page Layout area

and Layers to help control the page stuff.. like Boxes, Lines, etc.

Every Program I use has Layers so its not normal for a powerhouse program

like Filemaker not to have Layers.. But they don't.. 

And they don't have Horizontal Scrolling a feature you see all over the place.

they only have vertical.  

 

Its all good.. i just thought I would post something, and some guy said I 

don't own a updated copy of Filemaker.. LOL. Not 14 I don't.

But I may buy 15 when it hits in April.. lol  I guess

 

Michael I have used FileMaker to generate catalogs with InDesign using a specific tool to do so http://www.65bit.com/software/easycatalog/

It is much quicker and more efficient to use each tool to their strengths. 

Using this tool you can integrate between the too you can do ODBC connectivity or just output CSV files and then update data when things change.

The alternate method is to generate xml and an xslt style sheet from FMP and do imports into InDesign - but i found this tedious and have found no other way to auto paginate a large document other then using EasyCatalog.  

Here is a video i made a few years ago.