Filemaker Pro What the?

[The Monkey]

Hi there,

I am finished writing a filemaker pro database ready to be used on the field. Everything is fine in the .fp7 file. Everything works great. However, after compiling to a runtime app, it refuses to export PDF files. When I create a database and want to export some pages of it to PDF, it comes up with an error message

"Save Records as PDF has been canceled. Do you wish to continue with this script?"

The script takes a few pages from different tables and compiles it to form a PDF on the desktop.

This is infuriating! I have tried everything from compiling on different machines to changing account privileges. I need a runtime app!

Just to recount... this problem does not exist if I run the database under filemaker pro 9, it only occurs under a runtime app.

I have never had this problem under filemaker pro 8.5 but this is the first compile under 9.0

Can someone please help?

Cheers!

[dsomar]

Hi there,

I registered just to answer your question. Compiled/Runtime apps can do just about everything except share db, modify layouts/field defs, and export PDFs - I believe it is due to a licensing issue with the PDF creation engine. Regardless, that is the problem you are running into. There are free online PDF generators as well as the built in PDF generation in Mac OS X, maybe those will help.

Best of luck,
DS

[The Monkey]

Gah. That is all I can say. Because obviously having PDF exporting functions in the entire macintosh operating system is fine, having "Print to PDF" on every single print dialogue box is also fine, but oh my goodness, having extremely specialized runtime app export to PDF functions are going to seriously hinder Adobe's income when quite obviously there is a work around where you simply PRINT TO PDF a document instead of actually printing it... well its good to know that my runtime app had the potential to cripple an internationally recognized multi billion dollar software giant such as adobe. w00t.

Sorry if I needed to rant there, but if you can't tell, i'm kind of really disappointed at the universe right now. damn planets and stuff.

I guess I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask if there are any 'export to PDF' filemaker plugins anyone has heard of?

[dsomar]

Ultimately there is the Adobe Print to PDF feature which creates a PDF Printer in your Printer List and you can print to that printer instead of your HP/Epson/Canon/Brother/Lexmark/etc and it will generate a PDF for you. Thus, it's basically springing for the whole PDF package. Or, use a webviewer and upload some kind of print or get an opensource PDF printer. I found this online:

"You can also use OpenOffice.org 2.0 to export to PDF or install PDF Creator, which adds itself to your printers and you can print to PDF from any program that supports printing. Both are very effective at the task. Also, both are open source apps."

[The Monkey]

Ultimately there is the Adobe Print to PDF feature which creates a PDF Printer in your Printer List and you can print to that printer instead of your HP/Epson/Canon/Brother/Lexmark/etc and it will generate a PDF for you. Thus, it's basically springing for the whole PDF package. Or, use a webviewer and upload some kind of print or get an opensource PDF printer. I found this online:

"You can also use OpenOffice.org 2.0 to export to PDF or install PDF Creator, which adds itself to your printers and you can print to PDF from any program that supports printing. Both are very effective at the task. Also, both are open source apps."

Thats an almost perfect solution... but there is one feature that I need to really blow me away.

In my runtime app, there are 3 separate PDF files created, one as a title page PDF, one as a contents page PDF and the final PDF is the body content, all created from the same runtime database. Each PDF file that is created will be different depending on different variables. At the moment in my project I use the "export to PDF" feature to create one large PDF consisting all three of these database files. This single file is later distributed to clients and this process needs to be as efficient as possible, since repetition will be large and as much of this needs to be as automated as possible.

Do you think it is possible to script into filemaker the ability to output a single PDF onto the desktop, created from 3 others using no dialogue boxes? (You see this solution has been painstakingly created for the soul reason to give completely computer illiterate people computer jobs... and the last thing I need is ten people calling my mobile phone every ten minutes asking me dumb questions).

Thanks for putting up with my insane questions!

[Bookman]

I developed an app a couple of years ago that creates and email PDFs in FM8. This is not as easy as it sounds. You must have a PDF generator that you can call from FM, and you have to be able to switch printers on the fly, both things that FM won't do. I used a PDF program called Affiler, but they are out of business, so I'm looking for another one. The printer switching, I wrote in AutoIT and call it from a script. Let me know if you would like the scripts and the AutoIT scripts, I can let you know how it was done and send you the scripts.