Method Community

I'm using the report designer to autofill some forms by using an image of the blank form as a picture object, which fills the whole page, and then placing the fields I want autofilled in the appropriate postions on the image.

Although this generally seems to work ok, I do get the warning  message about overlapping controls not exporting properly.  I  have a few issues about this overlapping problem which I hope you can address.

a) When I try to drag a field directly onto the picture object, I get the overlap warning and the control is not placed at all. I have to place it in a blank section of the report, and then move it onto the picture object. This works, but puts the new field behind the picture, so I have to constantly move the picture to the forground.   I'm wondering if there's a way to 'lock' the picture object as the background layer.

b)The bigger issue I have is that sometimes these steps cause the report designer to stop displaying the background picture in preview mode, even though it's still there in design mode. Saving and reopening the report doesn't fix this, and I have to revert to a previous version of the report to carry on, without the latest changes of course.

any help with these issues would be appreciated, as always,

Rolf

@Rolf

I believe that the issue can be resolved if you save the picture object as a Watermark. Within the Preview mode of the Report designer, on the tool bar of the report, select the Watermark option and upload the picture object in the Picture Watermark menu.

If this is not what you are looking for you can always remove it with the Clear All button on the bottom.

Please let me know if this helps?

By the way, I think this is a very clever way to move reports from QB to Method without having to redesign the aesthetic side. Thanks for sharing!

@Ted,

Thanks for the quick reply. Your suggestion works great and solves the overlap and loss of image issues.  There's still a little hiccup in that the watermark doesn't display in design mode, so I still use my original image there as well, as it's needed to lineup the fields.

Thanks again fo the help.

Rolf

@smohyee,

I'm actually using this to autofill some government legal forms which I got from the net in PDF format.  It's a lot easier and faster than trying to reproduce their forms, plus I think they might be concerned if the forms don't look exactly like their prescribed ones.  I'm sure it would work the same for QB reports, and am glad you found this useful.

I am using this technique as well, but can't get the watermark to display when running the report - or when printing.  I hope it is just a setting I am missing because the potential is great.  Any advice?
Thanks,
Garrett

@bcr_garrett

Please see the enclosed illustration for the location of the Watermark feature. What format are you loading the Watermark image?

I had the watermark as a GIF, switched to a JPEG and everything works now.
The GIF version would export fine (watermark visable), but would not show in 'live' report.
Thanks for the help!
Garrett