Fw: Negative number in "Number of Forms" field

[Nancy Palmquist]

I was asked by a number of members to expand on this so here it is.

I hope this helps.

Picture a check stub / check. The check stub is 22 lines and the check 
is 22 lines, for a report length of 44. You have tractor checks. (This 
is also adaptable to laser by just making the page length 60) Where the 
check stub is the detail of the report, listing the items to be paid, 
and the check is the subtotals section of the output.  You always want 
the check part to start on a certain line for it to print on the form 
correctly.

You analyze the check stub and determine how many detail lines will fit 
on one page (there is usually some headings and stuff printed that might 
reduce the lines that fit.)  You must also know if you are printing one 
line or two lines per detail line (record in filePro).  Now you measure 
the space you have for detail lines, divide by number of lines / record.

So you may have room for 10 one line detail lines, or 5 two line detail 
lines.  So you would set it to -10 in the first case, or -5 in the 
second case.


Another example would be for a pre-printed invoice form, where it has at 
the bottom a pre-printed place to put the total of the invoice. If the 
invoice is designed as a report in filePro which prints more than one 
charge (record) on one invoice (page), and you want the total to print 
at the bottom no matter if the invoice was for 1 item or 10 items, then 
you would use this feature.

The Number of forms down, will allow you to indicate how many detail 
lines fill a form to reach the subtotal location on the paper form.

Grand totals do no apply in this situation.  Grand totals are always 
treated as an additional page if you do not tell it to print on the last 
page, or added after the subtotals when you do tell it to print on the 
last page.  A check or invoice would never make it appropriate to print 
the grand totals with the subtotals.  That would be a summary page that 
might be printed to tell how much was invoiced or printed.  (In the case 
of the checks, it would waste a check.)

TRY it yourself,  make a report output, page length 60/66 (depends on 
what is your standard paper size.)

Add headings, detail line (one line) , and a subtotal section.  On the 
output setup, put -10 for forms down.

Select 5 records that would be in the subtotal section and print.  Try 
selecting and amount in that subtotal group from 1 to 10 and see what 
prints.

I always think this will help you make sense of the feature.

Now filePro is certainly not having any trouble printing the subtotals 
it is just where it is to be printed that is affected.  Other processing 
methods might now allow similar results with different methods but this 
is really easy, once you try it and get the "now I see".


Someone asked why this was not in the documentation.  It was not 
documented for many versions (it has been around since at least 3.0), 
because it was added by the programmer and the information did not get 
passed to the documentation writer.  Once that time passed it was 
overlooked for years and only users that knew about it were using it.  I 
have proofed a number of manuals over the years and suggested it should 
be added at each opportunity.  Finally, I gave up and just keep it as a 
great trick.

The ON-Line and other manuals are just copies of what is in the base 
manual and since they do not put it in the main docs, it never gets in 
the full docs.

Maybe someday it will be added or a clearer question will be added to 
Define Output to make it more helpful.

Nancy


-- 
Nancy Palmquist 		MOS & filePro Training Available
Virtual Software Systems	Web Based Training and Consulting	
PHONE: (412) 835-9417		   Web site:  http://www.vss3.com