Thread: Homegauge Trial Version - How to Print PDF Report?

When using the trial version of HomeGauge, is there any way to create a PDF report to send to my instructor for his comments and critique?

First: I apologize if this has been covered in the recent past on this forum.

Second: Maybe this is simple, but I sure do not see it in the menus.

Third:I appreciate what HomeGauge does to archive the reports for us when we have real clients, but I am not clear why this product is built on a model that seems to withhold the autonomy to produce a report from a menu-selectable "print to PDF" feature.

As a student doing practice inspections and writing practice reports, I still am expected to produce real PDF reports.

How can I accomplish this please?

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Why not print to a hard copy and scan the copy to your tutor's email? He can print, make comments and scan back to your email. You could even scan to your own email account as an attachment and forward it to him. It won't be PDF but will accomplish the same thing. Or just fax hard copies back and forth.

Originally Posted by Ian Page

Why not print to a hard copy and scan the copy to your tutor's email? He can print, make comments and scan back to your email. You could even scan to your own email account as an attachment and forward it to him. It won't be PDF but will accomplish the same thing. Or just fax hard copies back and forth.

Ian,
Thanks for your thoughts on this topic. My fax machine has been dormant for about 5 years as I tried my best to join the 21 century. And in that 9ntervening time, i discontinued using the home phone and rely on my cell phone, so a fax is out of the question.
PDF files are more versatile and the files are smaller than image files. A 56 page report just might overload the server and get rejected by the ISP. With a PDF file, the recipient can copy and paste text from the PDF into a word processor. And many people now can edit a PDF, but a scanned report would have to be printed to paper and then the comments would have to be hand written because there are not too many of us who have typewriters any longer.

Why not call them?????

HomeGuage Support

Contact HomeGauge

Need help you can't find online ,,,,,,? Call us at 828-254-2030 M-F/9-5 Eastern Time for assistance.

#5 Phone support - Office hours: Monday-Friday 9am-5pm Eastern Time
Phone support is included during your trial period and also long term as part of the HomeGauge Services. Read about the HomeGauge Services and the many other features included in it here.
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Sign up for the HG Services here
(828) 254-2030

There are 2 ways, you can decide which is easier for you.

1. From within HG, go to Print, select the Document Settings radio box for the items you are printing, select Edit, Other, and change the option from HTML to Adobe PDF. It's easier than it sounds.

2. Install a 3rd party print driver (dozens to chose from) and simply print the report to the PDF driver on your device.

FYI, I use HG, and the PDF output doesn't match the on screen MTML look, so just be forewarned.

Dom.

[QUOTE=Garry Sorrells;264757]Why not call them?????

Garry,

I always enjoy seeing your perspective on every topic.

I do a significant amount of my work at night. I am what you might call "asynchronous" with the rest of the working world.

And, I did send an email, but I actually wanted to hear the perspective from software users. It is frequently different that the perspective of the software authors.

And I did get a prompt reply from HG with a link to the instructions and a 4 minute tutorial video on YouTube. All is well now that I followed the instruction.

But I am still perplexed by the software's absence-by-design of a rather basic tool of print to PDF. AND.... the idea that I must set this up one time for any future use is odd at best.

This all started with the fact that when I tried to send a report to my instructor, he was unable to see any photos and he asked for the PDF as though that would be easier for both of us. Go figure that it would lead me down this path.

So, let me get you perspective on HG? Does it work for you the way your workflow goes?

Originally Posted by John C Hansen, LEED AP

Ian,
Thanks for your thoughts on this topic. My fax machine has been dormant for about 5 years as I tried my best to join the 21 century. And in that 9ntervening time, i discontinued using the home phone and rely on my cell phone, so a fax is out of the question.
PDF files are more versatile and the files are smaller than image files. A 56 page report just might overload the server and get rejected by the ISP. With a PDF file, the recipient can copy and paste text from the PDF into a word processor. And many people now can edit a PDF, but a scanned report would have to be printed to paper and then the comments would have to be hand written because there are not too many of us who have typewriters any longer.

Now there' a real business world lesson...Law unto Murphy, "If anything can go wrong...it will."

Always good to have a back-up plan. Modern technology is wonderful, expedient, efficient and all that but can also fail - sometimes at the most inconsiderate time.

Originally Posted by John C Hansen, LEED AP

But I am still perplexed by the software's absence-by-design of a rather basic tool of print to PDF. AND.... the idea that I must set this up one time for any future use is odd at best.

Originally Posted by Dom D'Agostino

FYI, I use HG, and the PDF output doesn't match the on screen MTML look, so just be forewarned.

I don't know anything about HG (however, I was doing reports in the field on a notebook computer starting in 1994, i.e., 'been there, done that'), but the above does sound strange given the technology available today (and in the last 20 years).

Seems like 'Print' should bring up all 'printers' - and I think that is what John is saying.

Then, from Dom's statement, it seems that HG lacks the ability to print WYSIWYG from HTML ... that is the most baffling part (if I'm correctly understanding what Dom said).

Originally Posted by Jerry Peck

...from Dom's statement, it seems that HG lacks the ability to print WYSIWYG from HTML ... that is the most baffling part (if I'm correctly understanding what Dom said).

Jerry,

You seem to have all the details correct. And this is one part of the reason that I asked here in the forum to get answers from the users rather than the authors. Software authors may think we do not need to make a PDF, or that the HTML report is superior from their perspective. But my instructor could not see the photographs in the HTML. (My wife could not see them either.) So, I doubt it is "operator error."

I even tried to do a copy/paste of the HTML into a word document, but there seemed to be some hidden code that gave me page breaks far too often. I had an MS Word document with 150+ pages.

I have emailed for help from HG to get the HTML report to allow the viewing of the photographs. Let's see how that progresses. I hear good things about HG support, but why is this not more intuitive? Apparently, the programmers idea of intuitive and my ideas of intuitive are quite different.

John,

I was a WordPerfect user at the time, so I wrote my report program to work on/within WordPerfect using WordPerfect macros.

My report program would do anything and everything, when I came upon something new to do, I created a new option for doing it again in the future.

Commercial inspection report programs would likely become unusable if they incorporated every option everyone wanted included ... but printing to a PDF in WYSIWYG? That seems like a 'no brainer' to me.

Same with showing photos -maybe showing photos is 'operator error'?

Originally Posted by Jerry Peck

John,

...Same with showing photos -maybe showing photos is 'operator error'?

Jerry, you said it better than I could. I would have been far more colorful, or downright caustic with how I phrased it.

I print HG reports to pdf files all the time and it's a breeze.

Any question you have re HG should be posted on the Facebook page dedicated to HG users. Shancy Garrison or one of the veteran HG users will reply forthwith.

Originally Posted by Dan Cullen

I print HG reports to pdf files all the time and it's a breeze.

Any question you have re HG should be posted on the Facebook page dedicated to HG users. Shancy Garrison or one of the veteran HG users will reply forthwith.

Dan,
I got the PDF report to work after receiving a reply from HG. With so many other types of software packages that all use a rather plain (simple and similar) print menu, I found that the HG has a rather long and feature-rich print menu that must be filled out almost like it is an order form that you might leave with your local printer.

But, it works. It just isn't as intuitive as most other print functions in the personal computing world that we all live in.

And the email response I got from HG was very valuable. They are a wonderful bunch of people at HG.

But here is my one chance to comment on the fact that the HG Support Site leaves me scratching my head. It seems that HG has had difficulty with creating (or maintaining) a usable "HELP" feature built into the software, so they created a web based "Support Site". Searching their site for answers is a resounding FAIL. Writing emails to HG always gets fast and friendly responses. But they would have far fewer questions if they simply had a HELP file that was searchable.

I don't want this to sound like a rant because I like what I have seen with the software so far, and will very likely continue to use it after I get my license and get to work. But software that has no usable help file that resides on my computer sure is a puzzle to me. And searching the HG Support Site is also a non-starter at this point. And watching all the HG webinar videos on YouTube to get the answers is another puzzle I am still working on. If they were indexed and searchable they might be useful, but they are not my choice to replace a good help file. I hope that I am the only one, and that HG will thrive by going in the direction they have chosen.

Call HomeGauge 1-877-274-4299 and they will help you, very good customer service, only one little problem , you have to call between 8am and 5 pm.

Originally Posted by Dom D'Agostino

There are 2 ways, you can decide which is easier for you.

1. From within HG, go to Print, select the Document Settings radio box for the items you are printing, select Edit, Other, and change the option from HTML to Adobe PDF. It's easier than it sounds.

2. Install a 3rd party print driver (dozens to chose from) and simply print the report to the PDF driver on your device.

FYI, I use HG, and the PDF output doesn't match the on screen MTML look, so just be forewarned.

Dom.

Doms first method is vastly superior. The final PDF done that way will return a TOC with working links (bookmarks) to each section of the report.

The second method yeilds a report with a table of contents but no links.