FormatForPrinting

[Graham Samuel]

I am reluctantly using FormatForPrinting to gain control over exact  
layout in Windows printouts. It seems to me an amazingly awkward  
beast, requiring one to remove a stack from memory before setting  
this property; not being editable once the property is set (meaning  
you have to save the stack before using it); not being cross- 
platform; and giving viewing difficulties if one wants to show an  
accurate preview. According to the docs

> Comments:
> Windows systems may use different font versions for printing and  
> for screen display, and the spacing of the print version may differ  
> from the spacing of the screen version. This can result in layouts  
> and line breaks differing between the screen display and the  
> printed result. For the best appearance of printed cards in a  
> stack, make sure the stack is closed (and not in memory), then set  
> the stack's formatForPrinting property to true before opening the  
> stack to print it.
>
>   Important!  Do not edit field text in a stack whose  
> formatForPrinting is true. Doing so can cause display anomalies.  
> Set the formatForPrinting property to false before you make changes  
> to text in fields.
>
> The spacing of printer font versions usually results in a difficult- 
> to-read display when these fonts are used for screen viewing. To  
> avoid display problems, set the formatForPrinting property to true  
> only when printing. To let the user preview the appearance of the  
> printed output, set the formatForPrinting property to true before  
> opening the stack.

This all makes me wonder whether it's worth doing, especially for an  
app that's supposed to work both on Macs and PCs.

Has anyone any experience of using this stuff that they would like to  
share?

TIA

Graham


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Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK and France