Exporting Data

The Save/Send Records As options (Save/Send Records As) make good sense when you just want to send FileMaker data to an associate. But sometimes your recipient is a computer. You might be sending your customer information to a mailing house to be printed on postcards, or loading it into QuickBooks. In cases like this, you’ll export the data.

When you export data, FileMaker needs to know what data to export. You tell it with the Export dialog box (Figure 17-6). The Table pop-up menu shows you what FileMaker considers the current table—in this case, Customers. Below it, the field list shows every field in the current layout for that table. But click the pop-up menu, and you’ll see that you can choose Current Table, which shows you all the fields in the current table, instead of just the fields on the layout. You’re also welcome to pick other tables from the pop-up menu and see their fields. When you choose fields from other tables, you’re still exporting Customer records. If you include fields from other tables, FileMaker gets the values from the first record related to each customer record.

When FileMaker exports the data, it includes each field in this list in the export file. The order of the fields in this list determines their order in the export file, and you can change it by dragging fields up or down in the list. To add every field in the field list to the field export order list, click Move All. Likewise, to remove all fields from the export order, click Clear All.

Figure 17-6. When FileMaker exports the data, it includes each field in this list in the export file. The order of the fields in this list determines their order in the export file, and you can change it by dragging fields up or down in the list. To add every field in the field list ...

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