How can I print a list of my items? [2.0]

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Last Updated: October 05, 2019
Keywords: print, lists, pages

Note: This is an older acticle that applies to Readerware 2.0. If you are using Readerware 3 or Readerware 4, you can find the equivalent article here.

You can print the current table view in Readerware by simply selecting File->Print from the Readerware menu. But sometimes you will get a bunch of narrow columns, what is going on?

The print function will print out your collection in a table view in WYSIWYG fashion. Readerware prints the table view as displayed on your screen. If the title column takes up 20% of the screen, it takes up 20% of the page width. As the default table view consists of many columns, if you print it the report will consist of the same columns squished to fit on the page.

What you need to do is decide which columns you want to print and create a new view containing just those columns. You can create as many views as you want. Try this.

• Select the Preferences menu item, Views tab.
• Select the Default Table view in the left column.
• Click on the Copy button, you will be prompted for a new name, enter say MyReport
• Your new view will appear in the left column, select it.
• Keep it simple to start with, let\'s just print Title, Author and ISBN. In the right column double click on the column names so that these three columns have a green check mark, the rest have a red X. Double clicking on the column name toggles between the two.
• Click OK.
• Select your new view from the view drop down list on the right of the toolbar.
• Click on the Browse toolbar button to display your database
• Only these three columns will display, size the columns as appropriate.
• Select File->Print.

You can create as many different views as you want, each with different columns. So you can create many different reports.

The ability to create any number of views, each with different columns in any order is a powerful feature in Readerware.

Views are used for more than just reports. You can also use views with the export feature. If you need to create different TAB delimited or CSV files, define a view containing the columns you want to export and the order you want the columns exported in.

You can also create views to help you edit and organize your data. Say you want to price your books, you can create a \"Pricing View\" containing just relevant columns. Maybe title, author, format, condition and price.

There are a lot of reasons to define views in Readerware.