Hi peoples...

I have looked on Google for this without any luck - hopefully it's an
easy one..

On an existing invoice I am trying to duplicate in FMP7, each element on
the invoice, like name and address, is in a box. Easy enough. However,
the items on the invoice are also in a large box, with vertical lines
dividing it into columns.

If I put a small vertical line beside the fields in my body part, it
looks lovely but does not display them below the last row. I have
absolutely no idea how to get it to carry the lines down to the footer -
it looks shocking with a big gap, but I am buggered if I know how this
is accomplished.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

PS - any ideas need to take into account that I have had to put a
subsummary below the body in order to make it break properly for the
next customer's records, and to get the page numbers to behave...


Regards

Chris

In article <42e7435a$1 (AT) clear (DOT) net.nz>, pa28_181_nospam_ (AT) paradise (DOT) net.nz
says...
1) Use portals. You need to handle multipage invoices a little more
carefully though (or just limit invoices to the maximum line items in
the portal (depending on what your business is that may not be a
problem).

or

2) Use blank records to fill out your pages. Ideally you'd export the
line items to be printed to a special utility table, and then pad it
with records to even out the page, and print.

In article <MPG.1d517250e8e29ecc989c2f (AT) shawnews (DOT) vf.shawcable.net>, 42
<nospam (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote:

Do not print portals. They haven't been designed to be printed and can
suffer from problems.



A better possibility, but always go with the most obvious:

3) Buy / make a stack of pre-printed invoice paper that then
gets put (back) through the printer to print the details
on to it. This is also a cheaper idea if your invoices
use colour for the "pretty bits" and only black for the
details.

or

4) Get rid of the vertical lines. My credit card invoice, for
example, doesn't have vertical lines - then again it does
have a huge gap even when they go to a second page!





Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

42 wrote:
Yep, that is certainly an option - I might be stuffed when printing
statements though, because it will have to print potentially quite a lot
of entries for some of their customers... Worth keeping as an option
though..


That's probably a lot better.. Still, anything which requires any extra
processing will probably be a lot slower than just hitting print, plus
there is the drama of preserving their found set..

I have just thought of a third option... I should design a new form
with no vertical lines on the body and sell that to them as an
'enhancement' :-) Then all they have to do is create a found set with
the records they want, and hit Print, and voila, there it is!!

Cheers for the help though - I will keep both of those options in
reserve in case it all goes pear shaped

Rgds

Chris
NZ

In article <280720050932170811%helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com>,
helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com says...
I've been printing portals without the slightest issue since version 3.
Could you elaborate on the problems?

This is a good and common solution. Of course it suffers from the "now I
need a whole new printer with more trays or have to shuffle paper
perpetually" issue.

Yeah that's how I usually design print layouts too. Working within the
limitations of the software is always less of a hassle.

Helpful Harry wrote:

Okay... I will keep that in mind.


I have designed a new set of invoice / statement / etc forms which have
no vertical lines, which I am going to sell them as an 'enhancement' to
fix the problem.. Also I had a look at a couple of different ways of
printing these things out, and I want to stay away from anything that
involves using any scripts in relation to things like statement
printing, for speed and complexity reasons.. If I can sell them on the
'enhancement' to their forms, then I can do it all with a single click
on the 'print' button..

PS, compared to what they have now, Filemaker's printing kicks ass..
Currently they have an old Unix system (which keeps falling over
regularly, and when it does they have to call Aussie - no NZ support),
and all the preprinted forms are stored in memory inside a certain model
of Lexmark laser printer, and they can't use any other brand of printer
or they lose their forms... So anything I do will be a vast improvement.

Regards,

Chris
NZ

In article <MPG.1d51b5ae733f8525989c32 (AT) shawnews (DOT) vf.shawcable.net>, 42
<nospam (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote:

Sliding problems, the old "too many" records problem, etc.

Having said that, I too have used portals for printing occassionally. I
also use Repeating fields sometimes. It depends entirely on what you're
trying to achieve, but it's best to be aware of potential problems ...
unless they've been correct in FileMaker 7 of course.




Not really, although it depends on the size and set-up of the business
using the database.

Usually an inkjet only has one tray and is nearby, meaning it's not
difficult to put one piece of letterhead / pre-printed paper in. Laser
printers usually have two (or more) trays and although they may be
further away it's still not difficult to put a piece of paper in the
Manual tray.

The only real problem is that most people aren't trrained to use a
printer properly. They simply use the default options which may mean
their printing steals your paper, whereas if they actually selected the
appropriate tray they'd get it on the correct paper.




The simple design is also often the easiest to read and understand,
especially if you're working in just black / white. )



Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

In article <280720051255392921%helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com>,
helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com says...
Ah sliding within portal rows. Ok... yeah avoid that.

But since your defining the maximum number lineitems, and displaying
them on the layout there isn't really any need actually slide them.

The too many records problem can be solved in a number of ways. Moreover
if you've explicitly disallowed "too many" records at the outset like I
suggest then its a nonissue.

For a real printing problem, consider this:

Printing invoices with lineitems that themselves may or may not have an
arbitrary 0-n number of sub-lineitems (think lot numbers, serial #
records, etc). Note that not all line items will have these sub-lineitem
related records, but some might have as many as 100. I still haven't
fond a completely satisfactory method for doing this.

There just doesn't seem to be any clean way to generate a 'report' of
this.

Haven't tried sliding in portals in FM7. In fact I'm having issues with
FM7 sliding that i didn't have in previous versions.

Ugh. Inkjet for business. Hate the whole concept. Hell... with the state
of inkjets these days I abhor them even at home.

Most entry level lasers these days do not have multiple trays. They are
either formatted like an injket with a sheaf upright in the rear, or
have one tray and a manual feed of some sort.

Sure workstation grade lasers generally have multiple trays. But in my
experience if the user has such a system then one of 2 things seems to
invariably occur:

1) They have a branch office(s) somehwere without such a printer, and
they don't want to shell out for them.

2) There was a reason they bought multitray printers. And they're
already using it for that purpose... so while it has 2 trays they're
already in use.

True its not "difficult". But it can be mind bogglingly annoying. If the
user is used to pressing print, stepping over to the printer to retrive
the invoice which will be printed out when she arrives... now tell her
that she now has to select manual feed, walk over to the printer put a
piece of paper in it, possibly press a "go" butotn, and then stand there
while it print... well... they aren't going to be impressed.

Justifiably. I wouldn't be either.

Hmmm. I'd counter that by saying that expecting someone to need training
in the printing of invoices to be beyond "press print" "retrieve
invoice" as an indication that the system is unncessarily complicated.


Its a routine invoice printout something many people do many many times
per day, not some custom certificate job that you want on card stock, in
landscape, scaled down 9%, with the graphics set to 'fine'...
micromanaging printer settings is unacceptable.

I'll happily concede that there are many businesses that do batch
invoicing once a week or something and yes, for them, swapping out the
plain for the pre-printed is not a big hassle. But if its a business
that prints invoices on demand then its not really satisfactory UNLESS
you put an expensive printer behind it... which is the hassle I
originally cited.

If the computer can reasonably be expected to know the right tray. The
user shouldn't have to select it.

/agree

In article <MPG.1d51eb9070fe9c80989c34 (AT) shawnews (DOT) vf.shawcable.net>, 42
<nospam (AT) nospam (DOT) com> wrote:

Depends what you mean by "clean" ... and how many invoices you're
trying to print at one time.

The best bet is to go down to the sub-lineitems file and print from
there, except you say not all line items have sub-lineitems.

You could script the sub-lineitems to be collated into one text field
for printing in the line items file.




With laser printers now much cheaper than they used to be, there's
really little point in a business using an inkjet, unless perhaps it's
a home-office type of thing that also wants colour.

When I get around to upgrading this set-up I'll be getting a colour
laser printer instead of this inkjet.



Depends what you mean by "entry level". I wouldn't touch a Brother or
Oki printer with a barge pole. Most makes above that have a proper
manual feed tray where you can leave a small pile of paper as well as
the usual plain paper tray, and often an option for at least one more
tray.




You do what they do in one small place I visit. There's two office, one
out the back and one in the front with the laser printer - the people
out the back simply internally phone the front office and ask them to
put a sheet of letterhead in the printer, they then push print and by
the time they've walked through the printout has finished. )

Besides, it's (supposedly) bad for you if you don't get up and walk
around occassionally.



You're not "micromanaging printer settings" - you're choosing the
correct paper tray.

Knowing how to use the printer PROPERLY would benefit them in every
print task they do. Using the same example office as above, they have
their computers all set to automatically print double-sided ... which
is fine until someone decides to print labels. Or one peron's print job
coming out on labels or letterhead because they used the default "any
tray" option rather than "plain tray" and I've just put labels in the
"manual" tray for my printout. \




The computer can't possibly know what you want to print on - that's why
the big offices have one tray for plain paper, one for letterhead, etc.
and train the staff to be able to use the printer properly.





Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

In article <280720051917415771%helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com>,
helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com says...
Even just one is a hassle. More of course is worse.

Yeah. There are solutions. They aren't clean though. Collating text into
a field involves a number of sacrifices in formatting or a lot of work
to preserve it. Plus you need this text field for each lineitem, it
can't be a global or a calculation, so it violates good database design
principles.

I'm rapidly finding it cheaper to outsource colour printing, and running
an inexpensive home b/w laser. Colour lasers cost more and seem to be
pretty expensive to run as your watching 4 toners instead of 1... and
like some annoying inkjets many won't B/W if ANY is empty.

What printer are you leaning towards out of curiosity?

HP Laserjet 1000 series stuff is what I had in mind when i wrote that.
The 1000, 1020, 1100, 1200, 1320, etc.

At least one of the above printers does have an option for more trays,
but in the entry level market the form factors change quickly, and if
you didn't buy your extra accessories with the printer and its over a
couple years old its probably easier and more economical to buy a new
printer.

You wrote "phone internally" I initially read "phone eternally" Both
are appropriate. I deal with offices like that too; sadly they print
more than one page at a time OFTEN and thus always ask for "some" paper,
and then someone has to switch it back after the job.

Yes they cope with it, but they can't be called happy or satisfied with
it.

They're going to get to get their print job anyway.


Most people push the print icon in the toolbar. The print dialog box for
many of those programs doesn't even come up. The defaults are assumed
correct and the paper comes out. That is how it -should- be in a most
software systems.

There is a maxim I heared attributed to the military: Design systems for
the users we have, not the users we'd like to have.

A lot of offices simply install multiple printers. The 'expert' users
can swap paper, labels, duplex, envelopes, cheques, to their hearts
content. But invoices print out on the invoice printer and nobody messes
with it. And the poor girls at the front dealing with customers don't
know, and don't need know anything more than push print, retrieve paper.
Personally I think its a good system.

There is a difference between miscellaneous output from office tasks
done in word processors or spreadsheets with the output of a computer
"system".

If your using a "system" and you are on the invoice layout of the
invoicing module and you push print its pretty reasonable for the
computer to know that you want to print it out on the invoice paper. You
should only have to tell it where that paper is once.

When you are on the quotation layout of the system, preparing a quote,
and you press print its reasonable that the computer will print this on
the fancy letterhead. If your printing a trial balance cashout at the
end of the night and you push that button, then its reasonable for the
system to know that this is done on cheapie plain paper. And so forth.

A good point-of-sale or other integrated system should not need to be
told where each document of a certain sort needs to be printed each
time. Filemaker's ability to remember page set is pretty good and works
great in situations with one multitray printer, however, sadly it lacks
the ability to remember printers.

I'm always on the lookout for good ways to switch printers in filemaker.