While we're at it.
I have decided to temporarily abandon any attempt to get the report designer to do what I describe above & stick to the simplest possible report format. I now have a list of gripes about how the report designer performs (or rather doesn't).
Firstly I have saved my simple species-list template, but now when I run the xml query and the press the Report output button, the Run report template option is greyed out on the menu.
So I click new report template and open the saved template from the report designer window instead, it looks right on a print preview, so I print it. Now even though the menu option says Print... (the elipsis implying that there will be another dialog to follow), my report is sent to the printer with no further opportunity to change anything.
I work in an office with around 70 other people, sharing a number of networked printers, but I am unable to decide which printer I send to, nor tell it which mailbox to store my printing in (by default it goes to the mailbox of our IT manager). Worse than that, I have no opportunity to change the print settings so it is printing double-sided with the even pages printed upside down.
Having experimented a little more I discover that if, instead of printing from the print preview screen, I print directly from the report designer window, I do actually get a print preferences dialog, in which I can specify which printer and how I want it printed. Which would be great if the report designer actually paid any attention to my choices, rather than just ignoring them and sending it off to the IT manager's mailbox printed double-sided with even pages upside down, exactly as before.
All of which wouldn't be so bad if there was the option of saving the report as an rtf, so I could choose to print it from another piece of software which actually does what it is told, but as far as I can tell there is no such option.
Why is the report designer incuded with Recorder 6? Does anyone use it?
Rob Large
Wildlife Sites Officer
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre
