[GNC] GnuCash 3.7 and Reports

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Mon Sep 9 16:27:18 EDT 2019


John,

This one time is okay, but you really shouldn’t e-mail members directly unless specifically requested to. At the very least, others would benefit from the exchange. I’m replying to the list to keep the thread going there.

For attachments, mailman seems to like it when your e-mail client puts them all at the end, not in-line. So what you have here would probably get stripped out. I’ve seen some people refer to each attachment by a number in that case in the text. Another option I’ve used at times is img.ur and I just include the links in my text.

-----------

Now, let's tackle the invoice formatting.

For starters, maybe give the default stylesheet a try and see if it gets you close (or exactly) to what you want. The default now lets you include an image, so you don’t *have* to use Fancy Invoice. Also, maybe play with the banner size. If you don’t need it to be full-width, and more like a logo, that might help.

Second, pay careful attention to the settings for Rows 1-3 and Left-Right. I noticed that your current settings show ‘Our Details’ as Right, but the 2.6.x version had them as Left.  Try the following:

Row 1 Left: Picture
Row 1 Right: (empty)
Row 2 Left: Our Details
Row 2 Right: Invoice Details
Row 3 Left: Their Details

This would considerably clean up the display and get you closer to what you had with 2.6.x (though not perfectly)

Also setting:

.invoice-title { float: right; }

Should place the invoice # right above the other invoice detail so it looks like it is all together.

Of course, there might be cleaner layouts based on the info you have. Note as well, that if the section ‘Our Details’ takes up too much vertical space to balance out the header, consider placing that info in the ‘Contact’ or ‘Payment to’ sections in Options > Display, and then removing it from File > Properties > Business. If you need them in Properties > Business for some other reason, you can still include them in the "Contact/Payment to" sections and just suppress the output at the top with one or all of the following in Options > Layout > CSS

.company-email { display: none; }
.company-url { display: none; }
.company-phone { display: none; }

Now, for the invoice detail...

I’m not sure why that second screenshot is so narrow. There were some stylesheet changes between 2.6.x and now, so that may be the issue. Try exporting the report as an .html file and then opening it with a web browser to see if it looks normal. (and then you can print from there) If that works, maybe file a bug on Fancy Invoice, but double check any customizations first. However, I see your later screenshots seem to be full width, so I’m not sure what is going on there.

Finally, I wouldn't mess with the table sizes. You need all 3 to be 100% so it always fills the whole width and things don’t look messy or cut off as you found with screenshot #7.

Screenshot #3 looks like what I get, save my header Rows and Left/Right alignments are different and more balanced.

Regards,
Adrien



> On Sep 9, 2019 w37d252, at 2:26 PM, John Morris <johnjeff at editide.us> wrote:
> 
> Hi Adrien,
>  Thank you for looking into this in more detail. It is interesting that you are not seeing the problems I am having. That give me hope that I may be able to resolve this without getting a new version of GnuCash.
> 
>  I’m writing directly to you this time because I am not sure if I can include attachments to the list. I’m hoping that I can show you in more detail what I’m getting and what I expect.
> 
>  We are using a customized style sheet based on the Fancy Invoice style sheet, but I did not change it much. Mostly, I just added the banner across the top. Here is a sample of what we were getting in GnuCash 2.6.16.
> <Sample from 2.6.16.pdf>
>  Note that the invoice number is in the same field as the invoice date and the due date and they are all roughly right aligned. Most importantly, the itemization takes up the full width of the page. Next, here is what I get for the same invoice report using GnuCash 3.7.
> <Invoice with standard padding.pdf>
> Note that the invoice number is now at the top of the page. More importantly, Everything is “right aligned” to a line just past the middle of the page, leaving a large white space on the right. This version includes the fix you suggested earlier to get the invoice right aligned. Thank you for that. Next, I tried filling in the item description to make it wrap (an unlikely scenario in our business). Here is the result.
> <Invoice with long description and standard padding.pdf>
> Note that the invoice number, and everything else, is correctly right justified. Please ignore the slight misalignment of the numbers in the item descriptions. That is due to me editing the invoice to anonymize it. 
> 
> 
> Next, based on your suggestion to fix the positioning of the invoice number and my very limited understanding of CSS, I played around with the table sizes. Here are screenshots of the original settings and the new settings that at least get our usual invoice to print close to right.
> <Standard padding settings.png><Settings required to create fake padding.png>
> 
> These settings do produce a reasonable invoice as long as the description is not long.
> <Invoice with fake padding.pdf>
> However, they really mess up an invoice with a somewhat longer description.
> <Invoice with long description and fake padding.pdf>
> 
>  Again, thank you for looking at this with me.
> 
> Best,
> John
> 
>> On Sep 9, 2019, at 2:03 PM, Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sep 9, 2019 w37d252, at 12:41 PM, John Morris <johnjeff at editide.us> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi Adrien,
>>> Thanks for looking into this issue as well. I will study the new procedure for loading reports as soon as I am able.
>>> 
>>>> 1. My invoices (editing/viewing) all pad to the width of the window no matter how I size it, so I’m not sure what you have going on. Maybe try double-clicking the description header and see if they don’t snap back to normal from then on. (I’m also on Mojave)
>>> 
>>> I’m not sure, but I think we may be comparing apples and oranges. Yes, when editing an invoice, the columns pad out to fill the window. The issue I was reporting is about the printable invoice report. There are several options to choose from (easy, fancy, technicolor and others I don’t recall). None of them seem to pad out the _printable_ invoice to fill the page. Because these are static reports, double clicking has no effect.
>> 
>> Sorry, I misunderstood. But my Invoice Report also pads correctly. The entire item detail table just takes up more horizontal space when the descriptions get longer and the shorter description items all fall in line. (the entire table is sized the same and all columns line up) So I *really* am not sure where the problem lies. The report is just an HTML table. The widths are not fixed. (I don’t have a description that would line-wrap, but I’ll make something up to test.)
>> 
>>> 
>>>> 2. I don’t have a copy of 2.6.x handy to see what it was doing, but indeed, the invoice # prints on the top left. This is because it is the ’title’ of the document.
>>>> 
>>>> You can fix that in Options > Layout > CSS
>>>> 
>>>> add this line:
>>>> 
>>>> .invoice-title { float: right; }
>>>> 
>>>> and Apply.
>>> 
>>> I will try this fix as soon as I can. Is there any way to change it so the invoice number is not the title of the document? I would rather be able to put it down in the invoice details where I want it.
>> 
>> Not without editing the Scheme report code, saving it as a custom report, and then loading it like Doug’s reports.
>> 
>> For my own invoices, it appeared to look as if it were part of the invoice details. (above the invoice date and due date) Font selection and size should be able to make it appear that way. If you run into trouble attempting that with the built-in stylesheet editor, or aren’t familiar with CSS, shout back and I’ll see what I can come up with.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Adrien




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