Print Report

The Print Report form displays several settings that control report printing. The title bar displays the report that you are about to print. Different settings are displayed depending on the choices you make in this form. Press F1 for details.

You may choose the location you want to send the report to, for instance to the screen or to a specific printer. Page height, margins, number of copies and pages to print can also be set.

You may also send the report to Collect! Technical Services by selecting Screen as your location and then putting a check mark in the box labeled Technical support.

Please choose the location you want to send this report to:

To preview the report or send it to Collect! Technical Services, select Screen.

To save it on disk, select File and enter the name and location of the file to save.

To print to a printer, select Printer. You may select a specific printer and preview the report before it is output.

Other options include Spreadsheet, Email, Fax, Browser, Letter Service and Other.

Destination

What output device are you using for this report?

Printer

Select this option to print the report to paper. Select the appropriate printer from the pick list.

Two fields are visible to refine your choice. Choose Print to print to your printer. Choose Preview to view output in the Print Preview.

Printer Number

This field displays the printer to which Collect! will print the report. You can either accept the default printer, or pull down the list and choose any printer correctly attached to your computer or network. The pick list shows your installed printers.

Tray

This choice is visible only when Printer is selected as the report output option. It requires that you are printing via Device Context.

The choices in the pick list attached to this field change depending on the capabilities of your printer. Collect! checks your printer driver and builds a list of the options available to you.

Select 'Use Printer Default' if you want Collect! to function as it always has, using your default printer setup to determine output.

If you have multiple printers in your printer list, the choices in the Tray pick list will change depending on the printer you choose from the pick list on field labeled Printer.

If you are not sure of the features your printer supports, please refer to the printer manual or ask your vendor for details.

Preview

This option is allows you to view your report in Print Preview before sending it to the printer.

Screen

Choose this option to print your report to the screen. You can edit the text of the report when it is displayed on the screen and choose Print from the toolbar. The Print Report form is displayed again and you can choose a new destination for your edited report to be printed to, or even send it off as an Email.

When you print to screen and edit or print a letter, Collect! will create a Letter contact and mark it as 'Done.' Instead of a metafile, the screen text will be saved in the contact blob.

Uncompleted Letter contacts created by printing a letter to screen and saving after editing can be processed in your Daily Batch Letters. When printing to email or printer with meta files enabled, a standard meta file will be generated and will replace the original text that was saved in the contact blob.

When 'Screen' is selected, a check box labeled 'Technical support' appears in the lower right hand area of the Print Report form.

File

Choose this option to print the report to the file named in the File Name field. By default, Collect! puts a file name with an *.HTM extension in the File Name field . You can change this as needed to output as *.CSV or *.TXT, for instance. You can also change the path to save to a folder of your choice.

When you choose this option, four additional fields become visible. Choose one of these to further refine your choice.

Browse

Select the BROWSE button to navigate to a folder of your choice for saving this report to FILE. Enter a name for your report and a valid extension, such as CSV or TXT. Collect! will display the path and when the report prints it will be saved to the folder you selected.

By default, reports are saved to your letters folder so you do not have to select a folder here. This is just a convenience for users who need more flexibility for storing report files.

File Options

The options, Open, Edit, Print, and Save To File Only, become visible when you choose File as your output destination or Letter Service, if this is a letter batch for the Letter Service Bureau.

Open

Choose this to open the file after it is created. Whatever program you have associated to Open .txt files will open and display the report.

Edit

Choose this option to open the file after it is created. Whatever program you have associated to Edit .txt files will open and display the report for editing. This is useful for editing reports generated as HTML.

Print File

Select this option to save the report to file and also print it to the selected printer.

Save To File Only

Choose this option to save the file after it is created.

File Name

This field displays the path and name of the file that will be created when you print your report to FILE. By default, Collect! puts a file name with an *.HTM extension in the File Name field . You can change this as needed to output as *.CSV or *.TXT, for instance. You can also change the path to save to a folder of your choice. After the report has been printed, you can locate this file by looking in the specified folder.

You can set the File Name and Path when you create your report. Use the Report Options to tell Collect! to always print to file and enter the name and path of the file to be printed.

If you enter simply the extension, *.csv or *.rtf in the Report Options, when creating your report, File Name field, Collect! will create a file name for you automatically when you print your report. Collect adds an operator, date, time and increment stamp. For example, "OWN-20080305-115656-1.csv."

Spreadsheet

Choose this option to print the report to a spreadsheet named in the File Name field. You can change this path name. File names must follow the 8 and 3 naming convention. That is, 8 character name and 3 character extension. Use the default name assigned by Collect! or type in your own.

The output file is a CSV file and can be viewed in whatever program you have associated with your *.csv files.

Switch ON ' Multi Currency to omit currency formatting. This will output only numbers and the decimal point so that MS Excel may do math on the numbers.

To set the 'Multi Currency' switch, select OPTIONS from the top menu bar and a list of choices is displayed. Select COMPANY DETAILS to open the Company Details form and switch ON 'Multi Currency'. You may switch it OFF again, if desired, after the report is printed.

Email

Choose this option to print the report as an Email. The report will automatically be sent through your Email program to the address in the Debtor's Email field. If you are printing to a Client, the address in the Client's Email field will be used.

When printing a Client letter batch to Email, please ensure that you are printing letters that 'Start On' "Client."

When you select this option, the 'Use SMS' check box will be displayed. Switch it ON to print SMS to the recipient's mobile phone. Please refer to Help topic, SMS Email Setup for details.

Use SMS

This field is visible only when you have selected "Email" as your output destination. Switch this ON with a check mark to enable SMS Email. An additional field appears where you can enter the domain name of your SMS Gateway.

Email using SMS creates an email with a TO field based on the phone number you set up in the SMS Email Setup form. The @domain is created from the entry you put in the 'Domain' field.

Please refer to Help topic, SMS Email Setup for details.

Domain

This field is visible only when you have switched ON 'Use SMS'. Enter the address of the SMS Gateway you are using for emailing to SMS. Collect! will prepend the @ symbol automatically when it creates the address, using your phone setup. If you set up a Default Domain Name, this field will fill automatically.

Please refer to Help topic, SMS Email Setup for details.

Fax

Choose this option to print the report as a Fax. The report will automatically be sent through your Fax modem using the Fax Numbers you have set up. Please refer to Print To Fax for details.

Browser

This selection will print the report to an HTML document which can either be printed to your printer or previewed in your default web browser.

Output is in HTML format using style sheets, when you have chosen to Print Via Browser in your Report and Printer Setup.

Other

Choose this option to print the report to an alternate word processor, such as Word Pad or MS Word. Put the correct name of the document in the Path field. This is useful for mail merge reports using an MS Word label template document that you previously designed.

Letter Service

This option is visible when you have chosen Letter Service Bureau from the Print menu, Daily Reports option. The output is a file of batch letters. Four additional fields, relating to files, are visible when you choose this option. As well, the File Name field is displayed to hold the path of your letter service file.

Technical Support

This check box is displayed when you select 'Screen" as your output option. This enables you to quickly send your report output to Collect! Technical Services for review.

This is very useful for sending a Quick Print when Technical Services asks to see details.

Additional Output Options

You can control the margins and other settings pertaining to your report output. Some experimenting may be necessary to achieve desired results.

Number Of Copies

Enter the number of copies you want to print.

Print From Page

This field tells the program which page to start printing on. If you leave it blank, the report will start printing on the first page. If you enter a number, printing will start on the page number you entered.

To Page

This field tells the program which page to stop printing on. If you leave it blank, the report will print from the start page to the end of the report. If you enter a number, printing will stop on the page number you entered.

Ensure that your printer is turned on and ready to receive characters (online) from the program. If the program finds it cannot properly communicate with the printer, it retries for about 10 seconds, and then displays an error message.

Page Height

This displays the number of lines per page. Normal dot matrix printers are 66 lines per page, while laser printers are 60 lines high. This information is used to know when to insert a footer, if there is one defined for this report.

Page Width

This will determine where printed lines wrap automatically. This is especially important for the Quick Print option.

If you find that your columns are wrapping, try changing the value in this field to 132.

Top Margin

This is the number of lines to be left blank at the top of the page.

Left Margin

This is the number of spaces (character positions) you want to leave blank on the left side of the printed page.

When printing to the screen, the left margin is ignored. After you review or edit the letter, you can print with the F5 key. Then you can specify a left margin before printing.

Technical Support

Switch this ON with a check mark to send the report output to Collect! Technical Services. This will send any information that would normally have been printed to Screen. This is very useful for sending information that formerly required faxing many supporting pages for a technical issue.

Use this to send any information requested by Collect! Technical Services, including Report Codes, Access Rights settings, User information, Operator settings, Transaction Type settings, or WIP Options, for example.

Data is encrypted and transferred securely.

This check box is visible only when you select 'Screen' as the output destination. It may not be visible if your access rights do not permit you to use the function.

Print

Select this button to begin printing to the destination you have chosen.

Setup

Select this button to display the Report and Printer Setup form where you can adjust your default settings.

Cancel

Select this button to cancel the printing process and return to the previous screen.

Help

Select this button for help on the options in this form and other topics related to printing reports and letters.

See Also

- Report and Printer Setup
- How To Edit Style Sheets
- Letter Service
- Report Topics Index