Reports
How can I view Snap-Plus reports?Snap-Plus reports are created as html web pages, and the program automatically sends them to your default browser for viewing and printing when you create one. The reports can also be opened with a spreadsheet or word processor for editing and printing. You can do this by using the File/Open menu choice in your spreadsheet/word processor, or you can copy and paste the report from the web browser to your spreadsheet/word processor. If you do edit the report in this way, be sure to "Save As" with a different name. See "Where are my reports saved" below.
Reports are displayed using your default web browser. If you don't have a default browser set up, you should do so. Just open your favorite browser and when it asks if you want to set this as the default, click yes.
AOL users may find that creating a report causes their AOL setup to initiate a dialup. You can fix this by turning off "dial on demand" in the AOL setup. Please drop us an email if you have this problem and have other suggestions.
Can I customize my Snap-Plus reports?
There are a few report options you can change in the Snap-Plus report setup dialog box. Which ones are available depends on which report you are creating. You can always filter fields by sub-farm designation, and sometimes you can change the start year for the report. The soil test report gives you the choice of a short or long form. We will be making report customization in Snap-Plus more sophisticated in the future as time and funding allows.
You can also use a spreadsheet or word processor to make changes to Snap-Plus reports. Although you can open the Snap-Plus html formatted reports directly in MS Excel or Word, some users have run into formatting problems (see below). We are working on creating reports as comma delimited files which will be easier to open and use in spreadsheets.
If you do not have Microsoft Excel or Word, you could consider using the free OpenOffice suite or the free AbiWord word processor.
How can I get preparer information in my Snap-Plus reports?
If preparer information has been entered into Snap-Plus, then it can be included in any report. First enter in preparer data by going to "Edit/Preparer info" from the Snap-Plus menu. Then, in the report setup dialog box, select the preparer from the dropdown list. You can edit preparer info from the report setup dialog box as well.
Where are my reports saved?
By default, reports are saved in the SnapPlus\Reports directory. The default report name includes the farm name, report name and (in some cases) the report year, and has an html suffux (eg "Sample farm.590.Report.html"). You can change both the destination directory and the report name to anything you want using the report setup dialog box.
If you change the directory where your report is saved, Snap-Plus will remember the new directory and continue to save reports there until you change it again. If you are re-generating a report with Snap-Plus and you already have a report in the folder with the same name, be sure to change the name of one of them or any editing you might have done will be overwritten.
When I go to print my report, it won't fit on the paper.
Snap-Plus reports are printed using your web browser or some other external program such as a spreadsheet. Web browser software handles printing differently depending on which one you are using. The important thing to remember is that reports print better in landscape mode, and may need a "shrink to fit page" option to fit nicely on standard sized paper. The Firefox browser allows these options to be set in its "print preview" window, however this browser does not word wrap long sets of crop or tillage abbreviations which makes the page wider. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 allows the user to pick landscape or portrait mode, but does not have an option to "fit to page" (although IE 7 is supposed to have this feature when it finally arrives). Internet Explorer does wordwrap the abbreviation strings, though.
Printing can also be done from your spreadsheet or word processor, where you should have more control over column widths and header text.
When I open my report in a spreadsheet, some colunms are formatted incorrectly.
Microsoft Excel often interprets data with hyphens as date information even when it is not. Unfortunately, it does not allow the user to format columns as it is opening the file, and sometimes reformatting cells after the file is opened does not work either. This is a known problem which we hope to address by providing a comma delimited (csv) report format which is more appropriate for spreadsheet import.
When I try to create a report, I get an "I/O error 103" message.
This error means that the report file your are trying to create could not be opened. It occurs as a result of two known situations:
- If you do not have administrative privileges on the computer you are working with, then you may get this error,
but the report should still be created and displayed. You just need to dismiss the error box. This is a known problem that we are working on.
- If you are re-creating a report that is already open in Microsoft Excel or Word, you get this error because Excel and Word put an exclusive lock on the file, and Snap-Plus can't re-open it for writing. The solution is to save and close the report in Excel or Word first. Remember that re-creating a report using the default report name silently overwrites any report with the same name in the report directory you are using.
