The activities you might want to do within FileMaker vary widely depending on whether FileMaker is in Layout, Browse, or Find mode. If you build a large number of shortcuts for each of those modes, it would be beneficial to break your FileMaker scope into three subscopes specific to the tasks you will be doing in each of the three modes.

Set up properly, a simple press of a hot key would switch FileMaker to Layout mode and make your shortcuts for layout work active while simultaneously shutting off any triggers for any shortcuts you've set up to use in FileMaker's Browse or Find modes.

Copy text from a text editor into a database, switch to your database app, create a new record, paste the copied text, then go back to the text editor and delete the text just moved; all with a single keystroke. Additionally, pulling data from a spreadsheet can be handled in the same way, using tabs or arrow keys to walk through the spreadsheet cells, copy, switch to the database, paste, etc.

Alternately, you can copy a database record, paste it into a document and print without retyping a word. Using QuicKeys to automatically shuffle data between applications is quite simple and a great time saver!

Here is an example that you can download of a QuicKeys X2 Shortcut that will align the bottom edges of the selected objects in FileMaker Pro 6 or 7 running on OS X. This is especially useful for designing layouts with list and portal views.

Chris wrote:

> If I wanted 10 copies, I duplicated the record 10 times, then told it to just print all records...
> resulting in 10 copies of the same data being printed (FMP thinks it is 1 copy each of 10 different
> records, but the end result is the same).

jagermeister at localbar dot com wrote:
> i'd use quickeys, simple!

Thanks Chris and 'jagermeister' Unfortunately neither suggestion is completely suitable. QuicKeys might work (and I will investigate) but my gut feeling is there would be problems. Let me explain further:- There could be something like 200-300 records to be printed . The number of copies of each record could range between 10 and 500. Each record would contain a field that had the number of copies required but this field would not be on the layout being printed (hence my thought that QuicKeys would not be the solution).

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This is actually quite easily done with QuicKeys. The needed steps would look something like the following:

1. Starting with the print count field highlighted, do a Type Keystroke of Command+C to copy the contents.
2. Switch to the database that needs to be printed most likely using a menu selection.
3. Use a Type Keystroke of Command+P to bring up the print dialog.
4. Number of Copies should already be highlighted so just do another Type Keystroke of Command+V to paste in the print count number.
5. One more Type Keystroke of Enter should start the print process.

Details and specific solutions will vary, but this is exactly the sort of task QuicKeys was meant to tackle.