Comments on: FileMaker 9 Tip#6: Append to PDF

By: David Windarto

David Windarto — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:18:41 +0000

Dear Geoff’s
How to Combine multiple reports PDF into one PDF ???
under FM9….

Thank’s
David

By: Ward Clark

Ward Clark — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:10:46 +0000

Geoff’s note about the $path variable just pulled me out of a hole on Windows. I had a script with “Save Records as PDF” working fine with FMP 10 on Mac OS X 10.6.2, but it failed on Windows XP with the unhelpful “could not be created on this disk” error.

It turns out a variable with a full path needs no “filemac:” prefix on Mac OS X, but “filewin:” is required on Windows.

– Ward

By: David

David — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:01:12 +0000

@Matt: I have a few users still using 8.0 so the append is not an option. Do you have the scripting for the append still?

Thanks,
Dave

By: Colin

Colin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:51:29 +0000

Thanks for this article. Your tip with the path variable is exactly what I was needing and it saved me some time messing around in Filemaker to get it all working.

Warmest regards,
Colin

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:19:52 +0000

That is a great Article. I am working on a Instant Web Published Application. I have a question on saving the records as pdf. Is there any way to Save current record as PDF file with the web published application. I had gone through several articles, but could not get the solution for that.

By: Geoff Coffey

Geoff Coffey — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:02:46 +0000

@Jan:

Yes, absolutely there is. Any time FileMaker asks you for the path to an output file in a script, you can put a variable instead of a hard-coded path. First, you need to create a variable with the correct path. Something like this:

Set Variable [ $path, "file:" & Get(DesktopPath) & My Field & ".pdf" ]

That puts a “file:” type path in the $path variable. It will refer to a file on the user’s Desktop whose name comes from the My Field field.

Then, in your Save Records as PDF, when you specify the file, put $path in the window instead of choosing a file.

Hope this helps

Geoff

By: Jan Gravesen

Jan Gravesen — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:03:30 +0000

This is great, thanks a lot. Allmost what I wanted. But I wonder if there is any way to use a value from a field to name the output PDF file.

Jan

By: Geoff Coffey

Geoff Coffey — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 03:05:55 +0000

@raj:

I assume you’re sending your email in a loop. The key here is to turn the Append option *off* when you output the brochure layout, and then *on* when you output the certificate(s). This way, each time through the loop, the brochure is re-created, overwriting the existing one, and the certificate is then added to the new, fresh PDF.

If recreating the brochure every time isn’t appropriate (maybe it is slow?) then you’ll have to put something like the Troi File plug-in or AppleScript in the mix. Create the PDF once, then use the plug-in to copy it to a new location. You can then append to this copy, send the email, then delete it and make a fresh copy.

Hope this helps.

Geoff

By: Raj Kiran

Raj Kiran — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:29:08 +0000

Thanks for the example of appending pdf. I have a unique situation – a brochure (same for every one) + Certificate (varies for each person). I want to send these two togeter in one email as attachment.
When I append the certificate to brochure, the brochure file keep growing and keep appending new certificates at the end.. which is not a desirable outcome. I want to keep brochure file clean as orig and append certificate, and send that brochure+cert out keeping the brochure.pdf in its orig state. Can this be done with FM 9?

By: Geoff Coffey

Geoff Coffey — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:20:46 +0000

@stefan: I believe PDF creation is still MIA in the 9 runtime. My recollection is that this has to do with the PDF technology licensed by FMI. I’ve been told that their license doesn’t allow the kind of unlimited end user distribution the runtime allows, so they have to keep this feature out. I may be wrong though. Anybody know a different story?