Using a card for printing reports

[Bill Humphrey]

> If these are typical form elements, though - boxes, lines, and so on
> - I'd suggest trying them as graphics instead. You can draw graphics
> directly onto a card using the tools, and they will print at full
> resolution.
> -- 
> jeanne a. e. devoto ~ jaed at jaedworks.com
> http://www.jaedworks.com

It's too bad there is no way to convert a PDF or an EPS to whatever formats
the native Bezier graphics are in RunRev. That would be the ideal solution
for everyone as then RunRev would not need a fancy report generator as you
could do your design in Adobe Freehand or similar. Also the prevalence of
PDF's for other government forms (like those fun 1040's) would seem to be a
motivator for creating a conversion engine (are there tons of British forms
available as PDFs too?)


The problem is that I have 20+ complex U.S. Customs forms and Caribbean
island forms (St. Martin, Anegada, St. Kitts etc.) that are all available as
PDFs but RunRev has no easy to use complex report designer nor any ability
to import PDF's... So I am experimenting with having each report be a gif in
the background on a card especially for that purpose and than writing code
to put in the information from my vessel and crew and passenger databases
onto the various places on the form (both sides sometimes and with odd
number of lists). So far this is not working very well (small print not
readable). All of this I accomplish now with several HyperCard stacks and
the truly excellent features of Nine to Five Reports. Those features are
adding another conversion problem as well because Nine To Five had an index
and search feature that I used extensively throughout the old stacks that I
now have to re-write too (but that is a unique problem that I can live
with). The final goal is to use RunRev's internet access as U.S. Customs is
changing everything to paperless and that was difficult to do in HyperCard.