Format stationery is used to format items of stationery in everyday use such as invoices, cheques, remittance advices and so on. As an output type much of Format Stationery has been replaced by the letter writer in CRM. It is not a substitute for a word processor but it is a text editor capable of doing much more than presenting standard letters. Although word wrap and spelling checkers are not present it is more than capable of handling complicated form designs, multiple line per item reporting as well as letter writing.
Format stationery designs are not self contained. They only exist in order to present the format of the output. A Report is required to partner this design, and it is the report which will open and link the files, search the database for the required records, using derived fields if required for selection or sorting, and then present them to the stationery format for printing.
The stationery format is only there to cope with the page size and the design of the record presentation on the page, it will depend on the report definition to do everything else.
Reports provide the format with all of the required data in the correct order, all the format has to do is to arrange it on the page. The only exception is that the report will not pass any derived fields to the stationery format.
It is not important which of the two definitions is created and designed first. However,the files which are named and linked in the report definition must match the list of dictionaries which are named in the format definition. This is very important because the field contents are passed across to the format definition at run time as field names within a file number.
It is common practice to have one format definition driven by one report definition. In these cases, the three-character definition ID's of each is identical. A report stored as RD1 would expect to drive a format definition stored as RD1 for example.
Creating a new format definition is similar to creating a new report definition. Simply type in a three-character ID and press ENTER. If the ID exists it is displayed, otherwise the system prompts you for a new one.
The ring menu presented initially is as follows.
Exit Title Dicts Derived Format Compile Test-print
The Exit option behaves in exactly the same way as the Exit option on a report definition.
The Title option is explained twice as it is set up slightly differently depending on whether the format is being used to produce a letter or a multiple line per item report.