Saving as a PDF or Excel file

FileMaker Pro has built-in functionality that allows you to save data that you're viewing in a layout is either a Microsoft Excel file or an Adobe PDF file, that has all the engines built in to be able to do these conversions. You can see these options in Preview mode. We are going to lay on Preview mode. You'll notice that you got these icons here at the top of the screen. However, in any layout, you can see that you got the File Save/ Send Records options and Excel and PDF appeared there as well. The Save/Send Records As Excel functionality makes it easy for user to export FileMaker data from the current layout and foundset and work with it as an Excel worksheet. Note that FileMaker12, supports both the .xsl and .xslx formats for Microsoft Excel when it comes to Saving As. This is a great option, if you want to share data that's stored in your FileMaker database with someone who doesn't have access to the database. However, before I show you this feature, I want to make sure that you understand this is not intended to be an alternative to the data in your database. You shouldn't create an Excel Spreadsheet, send it to someone who's then going to make modifications, when they could just make those modifications directly to the FileMaker database. This is intended to be for people who don't need to update the data in your database, and it's just someone, like let's say your accountant wants to see all your orders, and he doesn't have FileMaker Pro or access your database. Then fine, Save it as Excel and send it off to him that way. But it in fact, somebody contacts you, let say it's an accounting person and they want some information that's stored in FileMaker, then this is an excellent tool for being able to share the data, and it's really easy to do too.

So the first thing you will need to do is identify the layout your FileMaker database that has all the fields on it that you want to export. So that's the key here, if you decide to use the Export Option, not the Save/Send As Excel but the Export Option which allows you to save an Excel document, you'll notice that you have the option to pick and choose all the different fields from the table that you want to include, however if you choose these Save/Send Records As Excel option, it doesn't even ask you for that so let's say save it our Desktop, and I am going to automatically open the file, and you see we can choose either xls or xlsx, and I mentioned that only because FileMaker can only import data as .xlsx in FileMaker 12, but it can export in both. So the other thing that's important just like when you are printing is you are saying whether or not you want to choose the records being browsed or just the current record. So records being browsed means your found set.

So here you'll notice we have got all 40 selected, but if I say in search, I have only get six records selected then, when I say Save/Send Records As Excel, choose the location, choose Records being Browsed, Automatically open file, I have also got some other options you because it's Excel the Worksheet, Title, Subject, Author, I am going to hit Save, and now it's going to open up this Spreadsheet in Excel and notice that it only exported out the found set.

So just like printing or exporting you have to make sure that you got the correct found set created before you save the record as Excel. So couple of things here notice first that FileMaker does do the Excel thing where it creates a first row and then puts in the field names, these are the FileMaker field names but, puts them in bold and puts them in a first row which is nice, they act as column headers that way. The one thing is though you'll notice that it's applying your naming conventions all though Product Name and Cost make sense, here the _pkProductID might not make sense so you might have to go in here and just manually change and save it before you share it with somebody.

And if you use related fields, it's going to show the tableName:: and then the related field so that's definitely something that you will want to change before you share these with anybody. Other than that it's exactly what you need users can now manipulate this as raw data, create charts, import it into another system whatever they want to do it. But again, I would caution you not to create a Spreadsheet so that users can start managing the data in the Spreadsheet rather than in your database that's a big no, no. So now let's explore the option for saving as a PDF, so Show All records, in a similar fashion, a user can create a PDF file in the case of the PDF file, it's going to look exactly like a hard copy would look if you printed out of this layout. Same thing applies here, allows you to select the layout, so you got to pick the layout that you want to reflect in PDF and then of course, you want to, so let's say customer welcome letter, and you want to create the right found set so let's say before we are go in to the Customer list, we say everybody from main, se we create a found set of 26. And I'm going to another layout that's based on the customer table. So I still have 26 records, so I have got the proper layout, and I have got the found set created. So now I can go to Preview mode if I want or of course, I can go to File Save/Send Records As PDF. I'll do this one for Preview mode, so I am going to hit Save as PDF same thing here and tell it where I want to save it and after saving it, I can automatically open the file. I can even create an email with this file as an attachment. I will also want to make a decision on whether or not, I am going to choose all records being browsed the current record. And here's an interesting one, for blank record, if you have a data entry screen in your database, and it shows all the different fields that are necessary to set up a customer, for example, you might want to just print one copy of those as a blank record, and then you can send that over to customer to have them fill it out by hand so that they know what information is necessary. Just a thought there.

But now, when I hit Save, it's going to take a minute because FileMaker has to pass this off to the Adobe engine, and now it will pop up, but you will notice that I've got a letter now printed with dynamic data in PDF form for every record in my found set. So it's really just a PDF version of exactly what you would print if you were to print it to a printer. So these are really great tools for FileMaker for sharing information on the fly, you can either save as Excel or save as PDF allowing you to save out formats that can be shared by those who do not have access to FileMaker Pro.