Creating a layout

The New Layout/Report assistant helps you design several types of layouts and reports to display on different types of devices (such as laptop computer screens or touch device screens), for different purposes (such as browsing records, entering data, or printing reports, mailing labels, or envelopes), and in different views (Form View, Table View, and List View). For details on each layout type, see About layout types.

To create a layout:

  1. In Layout mode, click New Layout/Report in the status toolbar.

    Or, in Browse mode, choose File menu > Manage > Layouts, and click New.

    You see the New Layout/Report assistant, which helps you create the type of layout you want. As you make your choices, additional options are presented to you. For some types of layouts, such as labels, envelopes, and reports, you see additional panels.

    To see an onscreen Help topic that explains the choices in the current panel, press F1 (Windows) or Command-? (macOS).

  2. For layouts designed for computers or touch devices, add fields to the layout.

    See Defining and changing fields.

  3. If you intend to print a report in landscape orientation or on a special paper size, choose File menu > Print Setup (Windows) or File menu > Page Setup (macOS), confirm the orientation and paper settings, then click OK.

    In Preview mode, you can also click Print Setup (Windows) or Page Setup (macOS) in the status toolbar.

    Modified Print Setup and Page Setup settings affect all other layouts in the current file, so you may need to change these settings later to print other layouts properly.

Notes 

  • Some FileMaker Pro layouts are divided into layout parts. FileMaker Pro includes the parts as needed on a layout depending on the choices you make in the New Layout/Report assistant. You have complete control over layout parts after you complete the assistant. See Working with layout parts.
  • Each layout that you create is assigned a layout theme. See Changing the theme of a layout.
  • If you include a field on the layout from another table or database (a related field), you should understand relational database concepts. See Working with related tables.
  • You can display a specified layout every time you open a FileMaker Pro file. See Setting file options.
  • To add fields to an existing label or envelope layout, see Placing merge fields on a layout.
  • You can duplicate an existing layout and customize the new one to fit your needs. See Duplicating, deleting, or renaming layouts.

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