I am revising the format for some labels in Filemaker Pro–trying to have the two address lines, but if one is blank the city/state line should go next. Right now it is leaving blank line for the 2nd address line if people don’t have information for that line.
The booklet says: “In records needing only three lines, the extra line is omitted so there is no blank line in the labels.” Yes, that’s what I want, but it is not happening right.
FYI, I inherited a database because I’m the registrar for a group. The former registrar also takes all the data and creates the annual yearbook. This is why I have purchased and use the Filemaker Pro–to continue it the way he did it. But I have never learned Filemaker Pro very well–I just know enough to get by.
I’m sure the instructions are in the big instruction book, but I just can’t find it. Any help would be appreciated.
I’ll give this one a shot. The behavior you want is known as “Sliding” in the Filemaker vocabulary, so you might want to google something like: “Filemaker pro sliding fields”.
I tried to write out a cogent response here but I don’t have a copy of FM here at work. Based off memory alone, what I wrote didnt make a lick of sense so I backspaced over it. If no one else comes along, I’ll try to do better this evening when I’m at home. Sorry.
OS won’t be relevant (a tiny handful of FmPro functions vary by platform but this isn’t gonna be one of them).
Actually, FmPro version won’t matter much either.
There are two main ways of displaying field info on a FileMaker layout:
The field itself (rectangular box thingie) is present on the layout. In this case, there would be two of them, one below the other, Address Line 1 and Address Line 2.
The fields on the layout are set up as merge field codes. Like this: <FieldName>. Again, you’d have two of them, one below the other.
Regardless of which way your labels layout is set up, you need to do as Uncle Rojelio said: go in to Layout Mode, select the 2nd address line field and all fields below it, and go to Sliding/Printing (Fm 6, 5…) or Set Sliding/Printing (Fm 7, 8) command from the bottom of the Format Menu. Check the checkbox to slide UP based on only directly above; also check the “Also reduce the size of the enclosing part” box below it.
You do have another option: define a new field (Command-Shift-D on mac, Control-Shift-D on Windows), calculation, text, defined as: Address Line 1& Left("¶", length(Address Line 2))&Address Line 2&"¶"&City&", “&State&” "&ZipCode.
Kick all the other address fields off the labels layout and put that one on instead, sizing it with 4 rows’ worth of field height.
If you are smart enough to post on the Dope, you are smart enough to pwn FM Pro.
When defining a new field you will give the field a name and choose its type as “Calculation”. Hit the “Create” button and then choose “Options”. The resulting dialog box is where you put the calculation that AHunter3 posted. There is also a drop down there somewhere to define the result as “Text”.
In Layout mode, the outline of your field should be completely inside of the page breaks.
It also occurs to me that you might have created a whole new layout so that you could go back to the old one. If so, did you choose the “Labels” layout option? It should have asked you to choose a standard label from a dropdown list or to define new label dimensions. If not, just create a new layout with the proper options and drop your field on it. (Again, making sure that your field is smaller than the page breaks)
Note also that when the Print dialog comes up, you need to select the option “Records being browsed”, not “Current Record”. The “Current Record” option will always print only one label.
(And also don’t be browsing only one record! If you did a Find for “John Kladiddlehopper”, and then go to print labels, you’ll only get John Kladiddlehopper’s label printing out. Do a Command-J (or Control-J if you’re on a Windows PC) to do a Find All and then print Records Being Browsed and you should get labels for every entry in the database. If that’s not what you want, do a Find for the ones you do want and then print Records Being Browsed.
Glad it all worked. I think you’ll have fun with FM as you use it more. Since your question had to do with printing address labels, I’ll point out that FM has a plenty of built-in settings for printing directly to envelopes. Also, it has great layout ablilites. I use it for printiing up all kinds of cards and invites and stuff.
My problem is that I’m so afraid of messing up what I already have (which was set up by someone else) that I an very tentative.
I need to do the tutorial and start my own database of some sort and really have at it. Then I could figure it all out. It seems to be a very powerful program.
