Display & Publishing - Print Preview

OVERVIEW – User-defined fields enable you to add your own custom fields and values to the project database. For example, you can track additional activity data, such as delivery dates and purchase order numbers, or resource and cost-related data, such as profit, variances, and revised budgets.

To create user-defined fields, choose Enterprise, User Defined Fields. In the drop-down list at the top of the dialog box, select the subject area of the product where you want to use the new field, such as Activities, Activity Steps, Activity Resource Assignments, Projects, Resources, WBS, Expenses, Issues, Risks, and Work Products & Documents. Click Add. Enter the user-defined title and data type for the new field. - Primavera

1. Open the DIS – Display project.  Open the Rm.201 – month look ahead layout.
   
   
2. Click File on the menu bar and select Print Preview.
   
   
3. As with most programs, this is the area for you to view your schedule before printing it out.  However, unlike most programs, you’ll probably want to use the Print Preview feature nearly every time before you print anything out in order to ensure proper formatting.  First, click on the Print Setup button in the upper-left.
   
   TIP – Modifying the Print Setup first before modifying anything in the Page Setup window will ensure that you won’t have to go back and make all of your Page Setup modifications twice.
   
   TIP – I personally always print to a PDF using CutePDFWriter (Free Download) first before actually printing any hardcopy out.  The main reason for doing this is for documentation purposes and to leave less clutter around my office by having digital copies rather than paper copies.
   
   
4. If you have either Adobe PDF or CutePDFWriter (Free) select them from the Printer drop-down menu otherwise choose whatever printer you have available.  In terms of size, I find that for most schedules 11x17 works best by ensuring the proper space to display all of the information you want conveyed.  Therefore select 11 x 17 from the Size field if you are using a 11x17 capable printer otherwise you can squeeze everything into a 8 ½ x 11.  Leave the Orientation at Landscape.  Click OK.
   
   
5. If you had 11x17 selected, the size of the preview should have gotten larger.  Now, click on the Page Setup button directly to the left of the Print Setup button.
   
   Note – Print Preview in Primavera is notoriously buggy causing system crashes.
   
   
6. Click on the Options tab once the Page Setup window comes up.
   
   
7. This is where we can choose what goes on the printout.
   
   
8. At the top, let’s change the timescale so that the information on our schedule is best displayed.  For Timescale Start, choose 23-Jun-11 & for Timescale Finish, choose 15-Aug-11.
   
   TIP – When choosing the timescales it is good to add a little extra time on the finish date from the last activity in order that the activity description in the Gantt chart is not chopped off.  I also like to add a little bit of time before the first activity’s start date in order for the Data Date to be seen clearly.
   
   
9. Click on the Footer tab.
   
   
10. This is where the footer portion of the printed schedule is controlled. 
    
    
11. Click on the blue cell below the Section 1 column that now should say Gantt Chart Legend.  Notice that the space below becomes non-editable since this is a preset setting.
    
    
12. Click on the cell again to bring up the drop-down menu.  Choose Text/Logo.
    
    
13. A text field should appear where you can type in anything you want displayed.  Go ahead and type in “Data Date – “.
    
    
14. Now, notice the blank drop-down menu field below the text field.  Click on it.  Scroll through and select DD – Earliest Data Date.
    
    
15. Back to the text field, click right after “Data Date – “ to place the cursor there.  Click the Add button below. 
    
    
16. This adds [dd] to the text field.  Click Apply.
    
    
17. Notice that in the preview it displays the actual data date.  Likewise, all of the other options in the drop-down menu do the same thing.  They are codes that take information from the schedule and display them on the printout.
    
    Note – What do all of the headers and the center and right footers have in common?  They are all codes taken from the drop-down menu, each displaying a different element from the schedule.
    
    Left-Header = [project_name]
    Center-Header = [layout_name]
    Right-Header = [date] & [time]
    Center-Footer = [page_number] & [total_pages]
    Right-Footer = [filter_list]
    
    
18. Now, go back to the text field and hold down Shift and press Return to drop down to the next line. 
    
    Note – The reason you have to hold down Shift and then press Return instead of just pressing Return is because these fields are coded using HTML which regards a Shift Return as a line break and Return as a new paragraph.
    
    Note – A bug in Primavera that sometimes arises causes these text fields in Print Preview to display the actual HTML coding.
    
    Type the following making sure to leave a space after each hyphen:
    
    Start -
    Finish -
    
    
19. Just like we did before go to the drop-down menu and add PS – Earliest Project Start after “Start – “ and PF – Latest Project Finish after “Finish – “ making sure to follow the same steps that we followed adding the DD – Earliest Data Date code.  Once you’re done click Apply.
    
    TIP – After a while you may become familiar enough with these codes that you can add them yourselves.
    
    
20. Notice that what we just added doesn’t all fit within the allotted space.  We can either give the footer more area or we can shrink the text of the three lines we just added.  Let’s do the latter by highlighting the text and clicking the font editor.
    
    
21. Change the Size to 10 and click OK.
    
    
22. The text in the field has shrunk.  Click Apply.
    
    
23. Unfortunately, the text still doesn’t fit.  We’re going to have to expand the footer’s area now.  Click the up-arrow in the upper-right portion of the window to make the height 0.75.  Click Apply.  All three lines now fit. 
    
    
24. Up where it says “Divide Into: 3 Sections,” change the 3 to a 4 to add another section where we can place a company logo.
    
    
25. Double-click the new section box that should say [None] and choose Picture from the drop-down menu.
    
    
26. Click the Select Filename box to bring up a Windows Open window.  Select the “logo.jpg” that you downloaded at the beginning of this tutorial to your desktop and click Open.
    
    
27. Click Apply.  Your footer should now include four sections of equal size and the logo we just added is in the last one.
    
    
28. Having all of the sections at 25% doesn’t look very good so let’s adjust that by clicking and dragging the little boxes in the white bar above the section headers. 
    
    
29. Make them as follows to give balance to the layout and click Apply.
    
    
30. Click the Page tab at the top to finish our Page Setup options.
    
    
31. Activate the Fit timescale to: radio button.  This ensures that once you are done adjusting the % of normal size that the timescale does not spill out onto another page that it often will do if this button isn’t selected.  Click OK.
    
    
32. Click the Print button once satisfied with your preview and click OK.
    
    Note – There is an option, next to the print button, to publish what we have just setup to HTML.  I however, have no idea why one would want to do this when you can simply print to a PDF.
    

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