[dba-Tech] Re: [dba-OT] List of Reports

Rocky Smolin - Beach Access Software bchacc at san.rr.com
Mon Dec 1 09:35:27 CST 2003


John:

OK. That's two.  It's unanimous.  What we have here is a failure to
communicate.  Mine. And shame on me because this has to do with a fairly
user obvious manual and if I can't explain this to you guys how....well
never mind.

Let me try this again.  I wrote a manual for a product I'm launching next
year and finished it before I committed suicide.  But that's not important
now.

I was careful to use consistent styles for headers and so I used the Insert
Table of Contents thing to create a table of contents and it worked
beautifully.

Since I had a unique style for Figures I was able to insert a list of
figures after the table of contents using the Insert Tables thing again,
specifying the style that I used on the figures.  Beautiful.

So then I used a report capture program to make jpegs out of the reports in
the system so that I could make an appendix of reports both sample reports
and to go with the tutorials in the manual.

There are 31 pages of reports, all of them in landscape.  So in Microsoft
Photo Editor I first rotate the jpeg ninety degrees.  Then save it and then
drop it onto the manual page.

The title of the report has to be inserted vertically on the right side of
the page midway down, because the user will be turning the manual sideways
to look at the report and I want the title at what will be the bottom of the
page.  So I put the report title into a text box and rotated the text box
and that worked out just peachy.

Now, what I need now is list of reports in the table of contents.  If I had
the report title in a unique style I could use that style and the Insert
Table feature and viola! just like the figures, I'd have my TOC for the
reports.  But unfortunately, I can't get the Insert Table thingy to read the
text out of a text box to make its table.

So I've got to put the title of the report on the page with the report which
is very awkward since the report fills the page.  Even when I do it then I
have to make the report title invisible so it doesn't show on the page.  I
did it with two reports using a unique style for the report title, made them
invisible, and it worked.  But if I want to change the report title at that
point, I can't see it because it's invisible so that's awkward.  It was such
a PITA that I was casting about for some slicker way to do it.

And there you have it.  If you want, I'd be glad to send you the manual
off-line so you can see better what I'm talking about.  It's 3MB.

Many Thanks in Advance just for plowing through this explanation,

Rocky Smolin
Beach Access Software
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Bartow" <john at winhaven.net>
To: <dba-ot at databaseadvisors.com>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 7:03 AM
Subject: RE: [dba-OT] List of Reports


> Hi Rocky,
> I've read this a couple of times and I'm not sure what you're asking...
>
> Early Monday morning - confused.
>
> John B.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dba-ot-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> > [mailto:dba-ot-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Rocky Smolin -
> > Beach Access Software
> > Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 3:14 PM
> > To: ot list; dba-tech
> > Subject: [dba-OT] List of Reports
> >
> >
> > Dear Lists(s):
> >
> > In my manual I have an appendix of reports.  Since the reports
> > are all landscape, the report titles are in text boxes turned vertical.
> >
> > I've figured out how to use the Index and Tables thingy and it's
> > great for inserting my TOC, list of figures, and list of tables.
> > The problem I'm having is getting some text onto the page with
> > each report which won't show on the report page (in a unique
> > style, which I can do) which won't show on the page but will be
> > picked up by the table thingy to make a nice TOC for my reports.
> >
> > I tried the hidden thing, which works except now I can't see the
> > text - don't even know where to find it.  Most of the page is
> > covered by an inserted jpg of a report.
> >
> > Anyway, rather than wrestling this thing into submission, which I
> > can certainly do (I did two reports, made the table, worked fine,
> > lost some hair), does anybody know of a slick way to do this?
> >
> > It would be nice of the table thingy 'saw' the text in the text
> > box.  But I don't think it does.
> >
> > MTIA
> >
> > Rocky
> > _______________________________________________
> > dba-OT mailing list
> > dba-OT at databaseadvisors.com
> > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-ot
> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >
> >
>
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