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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	Do this
See an onscreen Help topic that explains the choices in the current panel	Windows: Press F1 (Windows) or Command-? (OS X). Note  If the layout you’re creating has additional panels (such as for labels, envelopes, or reports), you can also click (Windows) or (OS X) to get information about those panels.
Accept the settings in the panel and continue to the next panel (available for labels, envelopes, and report layouts)	Click Continue or Next.
Accept the settings in the panel but go back to the previous panel (available for labels, envelopes, and report layouts)	Click Back.
Close the assistant without saving any of your choices	Click Cancel.

2.	When you have finished making your choices, click Finish to create the layout.

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

See About defining database fields.

4.	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 (OS X), confirm the orientation and paper settings, then click OK.

In Preview mode, you can also click Print Setup (Windows) or Page Setup (OS X) 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

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Some FileMaker Pro layouts are divided into layout parts, which are areas on the layout that control how and where to display and print data, text, and graphics. FileMaker Pro includes the body, header, and footer parts as needed on a layout depending on the choices you make in the New Layout/Report assistant. Reports with grouped and totaled data also have subsummary parts, grand summary parts, or both. You have complete control over adding, removing, or modifying layout parts after you complete the assistant. See Working with layout parts.

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Each layout that you create is assigned a layout theme. If the new layout is the same type (Computer, Touch Device, or Printer) as the current layout, the same theme is assigned to the new layout; if the new layout is a different type, the appropriate default theme is assigned. The default theme for Computer layouts is Enlightened, the default theme for Touch Device layouts is Enlightened Touch, and the default theme for Printer layouts is Enlightened Print.

•	You can change a layout theme by clicking in the layout bar in Layout mode. You can also create object, layout part, and layout background styles and save them to a theme (see Creating new layout object, part, or background styles).

•	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 and files.

•	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.

Related topics 

Printing labels

Printing envelopes

Considerations when you create a Report layout

Adding fields to a layout

Troubleshooting layouts