Conditional Printing/Processing

Introduction

Some situations require that certain fields should print (or not print) based on a specified criteria. A good example of this would be a signature limit on a purchase order. Your company policy could dictate that purchase orders less than a certain value would print a graphic image of a signature, but purchase orders above the limit would require an actual hand-written signature, thus no signature need be printed.  This situation could be handled easily by using FormFusion’s Conditional Print feature.

The following example uses a PO where a signature is printed on the PO if the total is less than $200. Page one of the output for this example contains a PO with a total of $195.50, and page two has a total of $285 (shown in the image below). The image of the signature will print on page one, but the field will be left blank on page two.

An individual field or entire page can be printed conditionally based upon specified criteria.

A finished form with a signature at the bottom. The total on the form determines if the signature is to be printed.

The PO form shown in the figure above was developed within FormStamp and contains the graphic image of the signature.  This is the object that requires print conditions.

 

The MapForm image below shows the "Total" field that will be used as the criteria for printing the signature.

The Map Form variable used as criteria for printing.

The CaptureForm query is written, which, based upon the value of the Total field sets the printsignature variable to “not NULL” or leaves the variable in a NULL state.  Note that printsignature is set to NULL if the total is greater than 200, and “not NULL” if the value of Total is less than or equal to 200.  FormFusion will check if the value is “null” or “not NULL”, so although ‘true’ was utilized, any string that is not NULL could have been used.

CaptureForm query for print signature variable. The query reads: select 'true' into :printsignature from dual where :total <=200

Next, open FormStamp then bring up the Object Properties dialog for the signature object by right clicking on the object then selecting Format Object.  For this example, the object is a graphic image of a signature.  The following dialog will then be displayed:

The object properties dialog showing the general tab. On this tab, you can enter or change the name of the object, and set the print condition by selecting a variable from the drop down.

Select the printsignature variable, which determines if the object (the signature in this case) will print.   If printsignature is not a null value, FormFusion will print the signature.

This completes the process.  The output will now print as shown on the next page.

Page one of the P O. The signature is printed because the total is less than 200.

Page two of the P O. The signature is blank because the total is greater than 200.

This example has demonstrated conditional printing of an object based on the value of a field. You can also conditionally print any object on a FormStamp by editing its properties.

Conditional printing can also be applied to an entire form.  To accomplish this, open the FormStamp and right click anywhere in the Design Window and go to Form Properties. In the FormStamp Properties dialog, go to the Overlay tab. You can then select a variable to be used to determine if the form will be printed.  Note that the default is <always print>.

Form Stamp properties dialog with the overlay tab showing. Always print is the default condition.