Troubleshooting layouts that do not appear or print as expected
The following topics describe common problems and solutions when printing layouts.
Fonts on screen look fuzzy or jagged
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You may want to change the font smoothing settings:
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In Windows, see Setting general preferences.
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On Mac OS, you can set font smoothing options in the Mac OS Appearance System Preference. For more information, see Mac Help.
Report with grouped data and subtotals (subsummary report) doesn't print correctly
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See Troubleshooting layouts with summary or subsummary parts.
Fields or objects aren’t printing
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The objects might have been formatted as nonprinting. In Layout mode, select the object. In the Sliding & Visibility area of the Inspector, make sure Hide when printing is deselected.
Only one record is printing
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Make sure the Print dialog box is set to print Records being browsed instead of Current record.
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Check your found set to make sure it contains all the data that you want to print. For more information, see Finding records.
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The layout has mistakenly been set to display in two or more columns while the width of the column (the white area of the layout) has been made too wide to fit the number of columns selected within the printable area of the page. This results in groups of records (specifically, those which would fall in the columns which are off the right side of the page) not printing. To remedy the situation, in Layout mode, click Layout Setup Layout Setup button in the layout bar, click the Printing tab, and set the number of columns to the desired amount. Then, if necessary, adjust the right margin of the column by clicking and dragging the vertical dashed line on the layout.
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Choose Layouts menu > Part Setup. Select the Body part, and click Change. In the Part Definition dialog box, look to see whether Allow part to break across page boundaries is selected, and then do one of the following:
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If Allow part to break across page boundaries is selected, clear the checkbox, click OK, and try printing again.
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If Allow part to break across page boundaries is not selected, then select this option, and also select Discard remainder of part before new page. Then click OK, and try printing again.
For more information, see Adding a layout part.
An extra blank page prints after each page
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The layout extends just below the page boundary. In Layout mode, look across the bottom of the layout for a heavy dotted horizontal line, which indicates where the page breaks. Move a layout part up until the dotted line disappears. For more information, see About layout part types.
Some records in the portal don't print
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In Layout mode, resize the portal to increase the number of rows that the portal will print.
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If the portal is defined to display matching records from a related table, you can instead go to a layout that displays records from that table, find the records you want, and print a list from the layout.
For more information about portals, see Creating portals to display related records.
A columnar list does not print all the fields
Only objects within the margins print. The page boundary is visible in Layout mode (you might need to scroll to the right) as a heavy dotted line.
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Choose File menu > Print Setup (Windows) or Page Setup (Mac OS), and change the paper orientation to landscape so that more columns of fields will print
In Preview mode, you can also click Print Setup (Windows) or Page Setup (Mac OS) in the status toolbar.
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In Layout mode, adjust the width and position of the fields to make them all fit to the left of the heavy dotted line, or
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Create a second columnar list layout with the fields that don't fit on the first layout. See About layout types.
There is empty space between records
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Make the body part smaller. For more information, see Resizing layout parts.
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Set objects to slide, and try setting the sliding options to also reduce the size of the enclosing layout part. For more information, see Removing blank spaces in printouts.
Data is clipped
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Resize the field object to make it bigger to hold the largest amount of data it contains. For more information, see Resizing and reshaping objects.
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Use merge fields, and make the text block big enough to fit the longest text you anticipate. For more information, see Placing merge fields on a layout.
There is empty space between fields
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Use merge fields instead of standard fields. For more information, see Placing merge fields on a layout.
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Set fields and objects to slide up or left to close up space. For more information, see Removing blank spaces in printouts.
Sliding objects don't slide
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Switch to Preview mode; sliding doesn't show in Browse mode.
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Be sure both the object you want to slide, and the object to be slid into, are set to slide.
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There might be at least one object (for example, a line) that is not set to slide and is preventing other objects from sliding.
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Portal rows don't collapse even if they hold less data. Empty portal rows at the end of the list of related records do collapse.
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A tab control will slide, but it won’t shrink. Objects inside a tab control do not slide or shrink. When you print a form, only the selected tab panel is printed.
For more information, see Removing blank spaces in printouts.
Pages break in unexpected places
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Check the paper size and page orientation selected in Print Setup (Windows) or Page Setup (Mac OS).
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Choose Layouts menu > Part Setup, and check each part for page break settings that should be disabled. For more information, see Defining page breaks and numbering.
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Delete the header part (or footer) part if they are not needed. For more information, see Deleting layout parts.
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