"Section B: PLEP" and/or "Section I: Additional Information" printing problems:
In order to reduce the amount of unnecessary white space when printing, the EIEP system uses expandable or "sliding" fields for some of the text areas. This allows the sections to be printed on the fewest number of pages possible. For example, in "Section B: PLEP" and "Section I: Additional Information", some text areas may print as a half page or several pages if that much text is entered.
However, some print drivers are not compatible with the sliding fields, in which case pages printed may come out looking rather bizarre, with extra white space or even extra blank pages, and text scattered around or only partly visible.
There are at least three ways of resolving this problem:
- To address this problem, the EIEP has an alternate print option that does not use the sliding fields. The disadvantage to this is that the size of each printed text area is fixed. If you type in more than can be printed in the fixed-size area, the extra text will not be printed. If you type in much less than the fixed-size area will print, then there will be white space on the printed copy below the text you have entered. If you have this option selected, you will see the print dialog box for "Section I: Additional Information" after previewing that section, and you will want to note when you preview that section how many pages of text you need to print. If you do not enter a print range in the print dialog box, up to 12 pages of additional information will be printed, whether that much has been typed into the additional information text box or not.
To select the alternate print option, from the "Main Menu". go to the "User setup" page. In the lower right-hand corner, there is a checkbox below the "preview" checkbox, with a paragraph of explanatory information next to it.
Please note that if you choose the alternate print option, you will need to be very sure to always preview before printing, since there is no other way to tell whether you have entered more in a text field than can be printed in the space allotted. If the print preview shows that text has been cut off, you will need to go back into the IEP to either edit your text entry to fit, change the font size in the field, or copy-and-paste the text not printing into "Section I: Additional Information." (Don't forget to include a note at the end of the shortened text that directs the reader to Section I to find the rest of the information.)
- If you can change the resolution on your printer to 300dpi, this seems to eliminate the print driver incompatibility. Changing the resolution is not an option for all printers, nor may it be an option for a given printer if used on a network. If you can not find an option on any of the tabs in your printer preferences, ask your technical support person whether it is possible and whether it will cause any problems if your printer preferences are changed to 300dpi resolution.
- A different print driver may be installed on your Windows computer, and used as if it were a different printer. One driver that has been recommended as compatible with the FileMaker 4 runtime EIEP system and usable with many different laser printers is the "HP LaserJet 4" driver. There may be other print drivers that will work as well or better for your situation. If you are working on a network with others, you will certainly want to clear the installation and use of any print drivers with your technical support person rather than attempting it on your own.
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Windows printing problems or Windows error messages, or both:
These articles in the FileMaker Tech Info Knowledge Base may be helpful to you in resolving Windows printing problems as well as "illegal operation" or other errors. These often result from incompatibility with Windows print drivers. As noted above, one of the drivers that is reportedly compatible with the FileMaker 4 runtime EIEP system and which may be used with many laser printers is the "HP LaserJet 4" print driver. This or another additional print driver may be installed and used as if it were a separate printer, so you may return to using your regular print driver when not working with the EIEP system. Installing a different driver does not necessarily mean you will have to stop using the driver that was installed for your specific printer.
Some of the articles that were written with specific reference to Windows 95 may also be helpful with respect to other Windows operating systems.
