Quality of presenting output documents which the system allows the user to get is one of the most important characteristics of an advanced software system. Obtaining some paper document containing required information and designed in accordance with accepted standards is often the final aim of applying a program. It's natural that in most cases it is more convenient to use output data in electronic form (such as a theme or a query displayed on the screen). However, getting document in printed form is a necessary requirement for many practical tasks.
In previous sections (chapter 16 “Printing maps and themes”, chapter 31 “Printing tables and queries”) the command Print enabling printing queries and themes was described. An advantage of this command is simple use permitting the user to set printing parameters easily and get a “hard copy” of the corresponding table or spatial data. However, user's possibilities to affect arrangement of data and set up parameters of making up an output document using the command Print are minimal. It gives ground to consider the command Print a means of getting intermediate, draft printed materials.
Layouts are ObjectLand tools intended especially for designing and obtaining final printed documents. A layout can contain a big number of different elements presenting spatial and table GDB data and also purely designing elements – frames, drawings, inscriptions, etc. in a suitable form.
Layouts belong to components of the upper level of GDB together with maps, tables and so on. The tree of GDB structure contains a list of developed layouts.
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