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P3e reports cut text / graphics between pages!

13 replies [Last post]
Travis Bruehl
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Anyone else use the reports feature of P3e? We have been attempting to use it extensively.

Unfortunately, Primavera has lacked serverely on this function of the P3e software.

If you paste pictures, text - or whatever, into the step descriptions or notebook topics sections of activities / WBS / project - and run a report that will print these descriptions out, you will notice that the text (and any graphics you have) - WILL BE CUT IN HALF between pages!

There are NO page breaks! The only page breaks you can select are between records or recordsets.

Has anyone else experienced this or complained to Primavera about this!?!

Replies

Travis Bruehl
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Oh - one other thing. Don’t get me wrong. P3e is the creme de la creme for scheduling. I love the program - it is a cadillac - which is why I am so upset over this feature. They are selling a great product, we find flaws and they don’t fix them.

I have never used P3, however from what I hear it much different based on lack of WBS, etc. I can’t even compare MS Project with it either, as its in a different class. I could go on - but I don’t want to get off topic from this discussion.
Travis Bruehl
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Niek - you are not understanding the post. Anyone can post a WBS or org chart or whatever they want that is a short record.

That is no problem - that is easy. In fact the "use pagebreak before next record" works great.

What does NOT work is the TEXT fields!

Primavera coded their software in an interesting way. The text field converts anything you put into it (including any copied and pasted text, pictures, etc) into HTML format - it is all HTML coded.

We have found numerous problems with this - if you take a word or PDF document and copy text from this document into the notebook or step details section - you sometimes cannot modify the font and size. The hidden HTML codes control how the text is displayed.

I’ve found the only way to get around this is to copy anything you want into a raw text document to strip away any hidden formatting codes - befeore modifying the font and size, etc.

I plan on attending the Primavera users conference (which is being held in Orlando this year). This is one of the things that we plan on bringing up. It really irks me that Primavera will not listen to us in regards to fixing this (apparently our company isn’t high enough on the food chain, unlike Motorola which is ranked a high priority for them).
Niek Zonneveld
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Well my friends, then I’ve got a question for you:

How on earth would you draw a graphical representation of a WBS in P3 3.1?
Charleston-Joseph...
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Hello,

Nice to be back and join again with the opposition.

Maybe we really don’t know the true picture of P3e & P3e/c.

And they want us to discover the shortcomming and make promise to do better the next version.

Additional MONEY???

At present, ill stick with P3 version 3.1. Beside this is the contractual software to be used in planning.

Cheers,

charlie

Bill Guthrie
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gents, thats why i am sticking with p3 3.1

cheers bill
Niek Zonneveld
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Funny that you second a statement which I just proved to be incorrect.

Sometimes I’ve even used it for org charts; much quicker than Visio or PowerPoint.
Se de Leon
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Hi Travis,

I second the motion when you said:
"They are selling a broken product - plain and simple. Its being marketed to make work packages, and it can’t.

Telling me to go out and buy another software package to do something that the original package told me it could do - is not the answer."

Cheers,
Se
Niek Zonneveld
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Yeah it can do that but not through the report writer.

Create the WBS chart you want to print, on-screen.

Go to print preview and scale the WBS so it fits your entire paper.

HTH.

Niek.
Travis Bruehl
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Interestingly enough - if you visit Primavera’s web site - they are selling P3e to do EXACTLY what I am posting, create work packages!

There are even pictures of graphics they included in the steps to highlight this.

They are selling a broken product - plain and simple. Its being marketed to make work packages, and it can’t.

Telling me to go out and buy another software package to do something that the original package told me it could do - is not the answer.
Niek Zonneveld
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Travis,

I wouldn’t use the report writer for that purpose, to be honest. It is not exactly WYSIWYG and can be a real pain sometimes.

Release 5.0 is greatly improved but it still lacks the capabilities of a full-blown report writer. (charts, calculated fields, context dependent formatting, etc.)

For a while, P3e came bundled with a product called InfoMaker. If you want powerful reporting capabilities and don’t mind going straight to the database, that is probably your best bet.

HTH,

Niek.
Dang Xuan Thang
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It is easy, you can follow this steps, the problem will be solved!

1. Create a new report using the Wizard (Tools, Report Wizard).
2. Select Activity Steps as the subject Area.
3. Continue following the wizard to make your selections, for Fields, and Grouping and Sorting, Filtering.
4. In the Column Size step, go to Step Description column then adjust the width of this column as you desire.
5. Go to run your Report and see!

Hope you get it!
Travis Bruehl
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Thanks for the reply - but we have already tried that. Tried autosize, tried custom size.

Went into the report editor to manually create the report,
it just doesn’t work correctly (this is version 4.1 SP2).

Try it yourself...

I am attempting to attach an example, we’ll see if it works:

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr?i=wMTA2MDEyNzZzNDEzZG...

http://www.we-todd-did-racing.com/wetoddimage.wtdr?i=wMTA2MDEyODZzNDEzZG...
Travis Bruehl
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Joined: 8 Sep 2005
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Sorry - try this:

Page 1

Page 2