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Merlin Project: Base Costs Report as PDF

We received following question recently:

I’m using the latest version of Merlin Project on a mac and have created a project file where I needed to insert various base costs. I know Merlin Project sums them into planned, expected or actual base costs, but my client requested a detailed Base Costs Report to be printed or read in Preview or Acrobat Reader. The report should list all Base Costs on my project and export their properties. Is this possible?

To meet the requirement described above, you may use an AppleScript solution we developed.

Merlin Project: Create Project Handbook as PDF

We received the following question just recently:

I’m using the latest version of Merlin Project on a mac and have created a project file for a client. He has requested a project handbook to be printed or read in Preview or Acrobat Reader. The project handbook should list activities and attachments in a master–detail interface and export a set of predefined properties I am interested in. I don't mind if I need to use a script but I would like the action to do all works in one go; ie. iterate the items, extract the data and create the PDF. Is this possible?

One way to implement the customer's request would certainly be to use the File > Export > Image menu to export customized project views to PDFs or to call File > Print to print your documents.

However, to meet the requirement described above, an AppleScript solution developed by us comes in handy.

Merlin Project: Highlight Dependencies

You plan your projects with Merlin Project? Then you already know how to add, schedule and link activities by dependencies. When ever an activity requires another one before it can start or needs to run parallel to another, or even start after a buffer, planing by dependencies saves you time in getting your schedule done. If one activity drives one or more activities simply link them together. Less dates you enter, the more Merlin Project can help you by calculating the project timeline.

You need to overview the predecessors of a specific activity to understand why it cannot be planned earlier? Or do you want to identify successors benefiting from assigning more resources early on in a chain of activities?

Merlin Project now also supports Noteplan

At the latest with version 3, Noteplan has become a serious representative of Markdown-based note-taking apps.

With the flexibility of Markdown - which lets you quickly write text and create tasks - the app also offers some options for recording and organizing tasks. Add tags and mentions very easily, speeding up your workflow with natural language typing and auto-completion of tags, mentions, and links.

The reason I got in touch was due to numerous requests from Merlin Project customers who also use Noteplan for further documentation: They were looking for an easy way to hand over their data.

That's how I met the owner and main protagonist this year; Eduard Metzger lives and works in Panama, so he enjoys not only the good weather there, but also an excellent infrastructure. As a result, he always makes a very relaxed impression in our conversations.

Thanks to our AppleScript interface we were able to realize a simple data transfer. A free sample script can be downloaded here.