Print-Related Layout Options

Your layout needs are often different when viewing data onscreen versus on a printed page. For instance, you might want text blocks, fields or other objects to show onscreen, but to disappear completely when printed. Also, when printing, you're often concerned about wasted paper, but few people worry about using too much scrolling window. FileMaker gives you a handful of layout options to control how things print.

6.5.1. Non-Printing Objects

Sometimes you have something on a layout that you don't want to print, such as a layout that's designed to print over the top of preprinted invoice forms. When you view this layout in Browse mode, you want the appropriate boxes to show so your users know where to type. But when you print, you want only the field data.

You can tell FileMaker not to print any layout objects. First select the object (or objects). Then choose Format Sliding/Printing. This brings up the Set Sliding/ Printing dialog box, which you learned about in the last chapter (Section 5.3.5.4). What you

6.5.2. Columns

Occasionally your printed page needs to spread records across several columns. For example, when you print on address label sheets, the sheets you buy usually have two or three columns of labels on one page. Even when printing a list or detail layout, if your data's narrow, you can save paper by printing two records side by side. How do you tell FileMaker what to do in special cases like this? Figure 6-19 illustrates the problem.

Figure 6-19. FileMaker draws a dashed line through your layout to show you where the columns land (bottom). It also covers every column but the first with a dotted pattern. This pattern is its way of saying, "Don't expect anything you put here to print." Since every column is identical, you just have to lay out the first. FileMaker repeats it for the rest. Bottom: With the layout set to print in three columns, everything comes together (top).

When you turn on column printing for a layout, FileMaker does some pretty crazy stuff to your layout in Layout mode, as Figure 6-19 shows.

The column setting has no effect on your layout in Browse or Find modes. But if you print or switch to Preview mode, you can see the effect. Instead of repeating the body part just vertically, FileMaker tiles the body part both horizontally and vertically so that it fills the page.

Every column has to be the same width (this makes sense because every column contains the same kind of information). FileMaker automatically sets the column width so that the columns perfectly divide the page. But it bases its assumptions about the size of the page on the settings in the Print Setup (Windows) or Page Setup (Mac OS X) dialog box at the time you turn on columns. If you later switch to a different paper size or orientation, you probably want to resize the columns. To do so, just drag the first (left-most) dashed line on the layout. When you finish, FileMaker makes every column the same width as the first one.

Lastly, FileMaker gives you two choices for the way it arranges records in the columns. Choose "Across first" in the Layout Setup dialog box if you want the second record to be at the top of the second column. Choose "Down first" if it should be the second item in the first column. The flow arrows on the icons in the Layout Setup dialog box (Figure 6-20) show how the data flows onto the printout.