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Want to give a color to your layout’s background ? Click on the desired part tab and select a color. No need to draw huge colored rectangles! You can give different colors for your header, body, footer, sub-summary, etc.

When you specify a file name in a script or a relationship, the FP3 extension is not necessary, even for the Windows users. FMP will automatically select the right file. Adding later a FP3 extension to a file wont break a relationship nor will it create problems in your scripts.

Where is that field ? To find on which layout a field is being used, use the Overview function (File menu/Access privileges). Click on a field (column at the right) and look at the layout column. The layout(s) with a black bullet include the field you’ve clicked ! Nice when you are working on structures that have been created long time ago…

Giving special options to a Global field is normally not possible. However, you can define a text or numerical field, set the options you want and then change the field type to Global. FMP will keep the options.

To select object by type do the following: When designing a layout, ctrl-alt (or Command-Option) click on any object will keep the characteristics of this specific object the default attributes (font, size, line thickness, etc.) for the next actions. You can set manually the default attributes by selecting no object and specify the attributes.

Creating a self relationship in a file can be very useful, even necessary. But don’t forget to deselect the "…delete related records". You master file being the same as the current, you will delete all the records that are related in the current file.

To select all the objects of the same type when designing a layout, just select the tool for that object and then choose from the File menu or select an object on the layout and then choose Select All with the option key (Mac) or the Shift key (Windows) held down.

Files are getting huge and/or slow ? Save a compressed copy of it, close the original, delete it and rename the copy with the original name (usually the same name less the "Copy of"). This is a great time and hard disk space saving trick. This wont affect your relationships nor your scripts as long as you give to the copy the exact same name as the original.

You can make finds and sort case sensitive. Two possibilities: 1) In the storage option of the original field, change "English" (or your language) to ASCII. 2) If you want to keep the original field in its "original" state, create a calculation field that contains only the original field. In the storage option, select ASCII and "do not store calculation results" to avoid slowing down your file and growing it unnecessarily. The second option leave you the choice for case sensitive and regular sort and find.

You can hide networked files by adding an underscore to the end of the file name. Scripts and relationships can still access them. Example: notes.FP3_.

When designing layouts that will be used on both platform, always enlarge a little bit the text anchor and display fields a little bit bigger than what you need. Do the same with your buttons. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) of the Mac uses completely different methods for displaying screen objects and fonts than Windows. This is important if your want to avoid cut words.

I know it’s not always nice, but use only Times and Arial/Helvetica in your layouts, You will be spared from fonts substitution problems in a Mac/Win environment.

Beware of the difference in the character set of the Macintosh/Windows environment. Checkmarks, bullets, apples, 1/2, and other special characters don’t display on both platform.

Keep your applications and your OS up-to-date: http://www.claris.com http://www.claris.be http://www.claris.fr http://www.filemaker.com ftp://ftp.claris.com ftp://ftp.claris.be http://www.apple.com http://macos.apple.com http://www.microsoft.com http://www.win95update.com

When printing very large fields (larger than a page), it may happen that the last and/or the first line of the page is/are cut. To avoid this problem, try this hidden trick: In Layout mode, hold down the option key (on the Mac) or she shift key (on Windows) while selecting "Layout Setup" from the mode menu. Click on the "New Break" check box. In most cases this will prevent the text from being chopped in half when printing. Trick reminded by Annie Modesitt (modenet@aol.com)

When changing a Calculation field to another field type (text, number, date or time), FileMaker Pro keeps the last calculated value in the field. This is an easy way to make fields combinations or to automate corrections on certain strings, for instance.

Can I see what I would actually get on my printer while browsing (layouts with sub-summaries, for instance) ? Yes. Create first a Global container. Then a script that will preview your layout, copy the result to the clipboard, then paste it into that container and return to the browse mode. Copied report can be used in another application.

Need to find something but don’t remember in which field ? This happens regularly in large databases with a lot of fields. The solution is to create a All-in-one calculation field that concatenates the content of all (or the most usual) fields. Example: AllinOne (result is text)=FirstName & “ “ & LastName & “ “ & Title & “ “ & Department & “ “ & Address & “ “ & City & Remarks & “ “ & AnotherField & “ “ & SoForthField. Always place a space between fields to make your searches easier. You can check the “Do not store calculation result” option in the storage options to keep your database from growing too fast, but doing so this will slow down the searches as the field must be each time re-indexed. Do not place If tests. This will slow down your database (I know your will have blank spaces between the different information, but this is a search field that will - probably - never be printed.

You can copy the whole content of a record to paste it in another application. Make sure no field is selected and press Ctrl-C on Windows or Command-C on Mac. Pressing Ctrl-Shift-C or Command-Option-C will copy all found records. The information is tab delimited.

You can avoid a daily recalculation of the “Today” value in a calculation by replacing “Today” with “Status(CurrentDate)”. This wont change in anyway the result of your calculations.

A quick and easy way to import data from FMP to Excel without having to go through the export function is to use the “Copy record” or “Copy all records” script step. Just past the information in an excel sheet.

When using very small fonts and the Sliding Up command (in Windows95) the Preview in list format does not show the correct number of lines per page, probably because of the way Windows95 handles fonts at small sizes. You can avoid this problem by placing a vertical line in the layout. It should be the same height as a single line of the field. This forces the layout to conform to the size of the vertical line rather than the field and so produces a consistent output. (submitted by Brian MacLeod)