FM Pro 8.5 on Windows XP

About a month ago I posted details of a problem I was experiencing with
printing a report, which was the data from a single record. The report
includes several text fields, many of them are multi-line fields of variable
length. I have taken much care in ensuring that none of the fields overlap
each other or are over the page boundary. Due to them being of variable
length I have set 'Sliding up based on All above' and 'Also reduce the size
of the enclosing part'.

I have Layout Set-up Views set to 'Form View'; the Layout Set-up Printing
set to 'Use fixed page margins' (with 0cm for left and right, top set to
1.52cm and bottom set to 2.01cm). The Page Setup window is set for A4 and
the printer driver scaling is set to 100%.

With all this set as above I still get problems with some fields having the
top line of text missing, when the field appears at the top of the body part
of a new page. I am at a loss to know what to try to overcome this problem.

Are there any rules as to how far you should place a field from the page
boundary or have I got the page margins set to inappropriate settings.
Perhaps there are other settings somewhere I should set. I'm sure I'm
overlooking some simple thing but what! The printer I am currently using is
a Epson Stylus C66. I also 'print' to a pdf file using 'PDF Create!'.

Excuse me while I tear more hair from my head!


--
Jeff Wright

In article <f22ei4$kke$1$830fa79d (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk>, "Jeff Wright"
<jeff (AT) jeffwright (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:

Firstly, as before, page margins should never be 0 (few printers can
actually print that close to the edge), but since that's the left and
right it's not the cause of your problem.

I would guess that the sliding is causing the field to slide up too
high, and with a body part that cross a page break boundary you can get
problems of text disappearing. The best solution is to:

A. NEVER have a field that straddles across a page break boundary.
This is easy to spot and fix, unless you're using extra some
parts since FileMaker gets confused and misdisplays where the
page break really is. (Usually I put everything into the Body
part, set the horizontal T-square line to match the page break,
or draw a large rectangle off to one side, and then start
changing the layout to use Summary and Leading / Trailing
Headers / Footers.)

B. NEVER have fields that slide up at the top of a second page (or
third, etc. pages). This is also easy to fix by simply setting
the top-most field on the second page to NOT slide up (or if you
want that field to shrink you can place an invisible line above
the field and set the line to NOT slide up).


A third, less likely, possibility is that you need to update you
version of FileMaker with whatever patches are available to download
from FileMaker's website and / or your printer's software.

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

On May 11, 12:01 pm, "Jeff Wright" <j... (AT) jeffwright (DOT) demon.co.uk>
wrote:
Break it down and isolate it, then resolve it.

What happens if you turn sliding and printing off on all items? Still
a problem?

If not, start turning it back on for items a few at a time and see
where it breaks; it may give you insight. Once you know where the
issues are you can deal with it. Sometimes shifting fields around
makes a difference. Often there are little tricks you can do like
inserting a horizontal line (even an invisible 'white' one) above a
field to limit how much it slides or to force a margin, or force an
alignment that might otherwise not be possible etc.

If sliding printing isn't the issue, dupelicate the layout and start
removing stuff until it works. Then start adding stuff back in until
it doesn't... same idea... get some insight into the problem.

cheers,
Dave



cheers,
Dave

As I said before the report I am writing contains several multi-line fields
of a varying number of lines. I don't know how I would be able to not use
sliding, as this would cause a report of normally 2-pages to become a report
of 4 to 5-pages with a few rather large gaps in between.

Since sending my message I have noticed a problem with using 'PDF Create!',
rather than the pdf facility available within Filemaker. It appears that
'PDF Create!' has its own margins set, which obviously is going to produce a
different page length. So I guess I best use the pdf facility within
Filemaker, rather then 'PDF Create!'.

The other thing I think that I have read correctly in the Filemaker
documentation is that not only should you ensure that fields do not sit over
the top of the report/layout page boundaries, but they should also not be
touching the boundaries. In other words when you view the report/layout, as
you are creating it on screen, there should be a pixel or two of white space
between the page boundary on screen and the border of the field you are
placing on the report/layout.

--
Jeff Wright

"Helpful Harry" <helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com> wrote

In article <f27cem$cjh$1$8300dec7 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk>, "Jeff Wright"
<jeff (AT) jeffwright (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:

You can use sliding, just do not slide a field over the page
boundaries. When half a field ends up on one page and the other half on
another you are going to have problems.



Yes, just like any printer, the PDF "printer" will also have its own
minimum margin setting it can handle. You could try setting the margins
to a minimum of 1inch (2.5cm) or even higher, but with fields sliding
over page breaks I may not make any difference.



Precisely, and when a field slides up it of course does move over that
boundary.

If changing the margins to bigger ones doesn't help, then you
realistically have a choice of two options: be happy with gaps or be
happy with missing text. (


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

Oh Dear!

I guess I'm clutching at straws here, but I notice that when text from a
field goes missing it is the top line of text from the field that goes
missing. How about I create global fields that I put onto the report/layout
and before printing I assign these fields with a blank line (or perhaps a
line of white text) followed by the values from the actual fields I want to
print. In that way it wont matter if the top line goes missing and if it is
printed it will be a blank line anyway. That way I can use sliding fields.

Sounds to simple to work though!

Come to think about why don't I use water in my car instead of petrol!

--
Jeff Wright

"Helpful Harry" <helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com> wrote

In article <f2a45k$k3r$1$8300dec7 (AT) news (DOT) demon.co.uk>, "Jeff Wright"
<jeff (AT) jeffwright (DOT) demon.co.uk> wrote:

You can try it, but if sliding up is causing the problem it would be
easier to simply not slide the top field on each page (or put an
"invisible" line above the field and set the line to not slide - that
way the field can't slide up any higher than that.

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