Help

Creating and managing layouts and reports
F
ILEMAKER PRO HELP 241
To remove a merge field: Select the field name along with the << and >> symbols, then press
Backspace or Delete.
Notes
• You can insert punctuation, spaces, line breaks, and text between merge fields as needed.
Be careful not to type extra characters inside the <<
and >> symbols.
• You can insert a merge field directly into a text block by typing the field name surrounded by
two opening and two closing angle brackets, like this:
<<field>>. Make sure you use
angle brackets and not the single-character quotation marks («
and »), which won’t work.
• To specify text attributes to be used when you browse, preview, or print the field data in a
merge field, in Layout mode, select the merge field name and the <<
>> symbols inside the
merge field, then select formatting options in the Appearance tab of the Inspector. If you
don’t see the Inspector, click Inspector
in the layout bar. See Formatting text.
• To specify data formatting options (number, date, or time as appropriate for the field type),
click the Selection tool
in the status toolbar, then select the merge field and apply
data formatting options in the Data tab in the Inspector. See Formatting and setting up field
objects in Layout mode.
• If you use a text field as a merge field and specify text attributes (like style, color, or size) for
that field’s value in Browse mode (on another layout), the merge field picks up those
attributes.
• In Browse mode and Preview mode, a text block displays and prints only as much text as
will fit within its dimensions. Because merge fields often display a variable amount of data,
the contents of a text block may be clipped and may not appear in its entirety. If necessary,
resize the text block to display all of the text. For information on resizing text blocks, see
Resizing and reshaping objects.
• If you want to close up space between fields and non-text objects, to align value lists or
repeating fields, or to reduce the size of an enclosing layout part, set sliding options. For
more information, see
Removing blank spaces in printouts.
• You can also use a merge variable to display data. See Inserting merge variables onto a
layout.
Creating portals to display related records
A portal is a layout object that displays records from related tables. Use a portal only when you want
to display data from more than one related record. Portals display data from
related fields in rows,
one record in each row. For more details on when to use portals, see Deciding where to place
related fields.
To create a portal:
1. In Layout mode, click the Portal tool in the status toolbar.
2. Position the crosshair pointer on the layout where you want the portal to begin, then drag
the pointer diagonally until the portal is the size you want.
3. In the Portal Setup dialog box, for Show related records from, choose the related table
from which you want to display related records.
You can also choose Manage Database to create a new table or relationship.