I'm pretty steamed right now.
My wife told me I could buy the nice binder and pages for LBP. I wanted to find something cheaper, but she said to just buy the "good stuff", so I did.
It all came in the mail on Friday, but I was on a trip and didn't get back until yesterday. So last night I start working on the whole thing.
I bought the mini logbook, the one that is sized about the same as the traditional Jepp professional logbook.
After running test page after test page to make sure everything looked kosher, I decided it was time to print the real thing. I printed all of the left-side pages first, put them in the proper order, and then printed all of the right side pages. At this point I've been working on this for about 3 hours.
But something's wrong. Why does page 75 only have 4 entries on it and page 76 has a full page? After closer examination, I found the following:
Left pages - 18 log entries
Right pages - 19 log entries
Are you kidding me? So I pulled it up on the screen again, and sure enough, there were 18 entries on the left pages and 19 on the right. Son of a.... Actually, the words were a bit more colorful than that. I think I woke the neighbors at midnight last night.
So of course I send the info in to LBP support. I told them the situation, and I said that I was sending them the info to 1) keep it from happening to anyone else, and 2) possibly get a free pack of paper to try again since LBP was causing the problem.
Their response
Originally Posted by LBP support
Hello,
It sounds like you have the margins out of sync which caused your issue. You can reset your margin information by following the steps below:
-Click start...run and type in REGEDIT, press okay to get into the registry editor
-Expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER
-Expand Software
-Expand VB and VBA Program Settings
-Find any entries on the left with "Logbook Pro" in the text, right-click and delete each one
-Close the registry editor
I'm sorry but we cannot provide replacement paper for situations like this as it is the users responsibility to preview the report as presented on screen, which is exactly how it will print, and/or print a test using draft paper prior to using the purchased paper. If you'd like us to print the logbook solution for you, we have a new turn-key printing service available.
Please see the following URL for details regarding our turn-key printing service:
http://secure.nc-software.com/Turn-k...s-P113C25.aspx
Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
--------------------------
Sincerely,
Neal Culiner
NC Software, Inc.
http://www.nc-software.com
Say what? I have to edit my registry to print? I've never tried to print before, so what could've screwed up my registry so badly that I would need to edit it? It sounds like a software defect to me.
My response:
Honestly, you’re saying that editing the registry, which is a major windows function, is the solution here?
It sounds to me like this is a product defect. I should never have to do a registry edit to fix a program function. That’s akin to heart surgery on my computer, as one slip could make the situation un-repairable. I’ve never tried to print the logbook before, so having to do this before printing it the first time is definitely a product defect.
I did preview the report. Obviously not well enough. I didn’t realize I’d have to count the number of entries on each page to make sure that they were the same. That is a little beyond what the average user should have to do.
Keep in mind what you’re doing here. Out of good will and in the spirit of customer service, a good business would take care of a loyal, 5-year, 4-product customer. If this is the way you take care of your customers, so be it. Looks like it’ll be time for me to find a new product to recommend to friends, students, and colleagues.
And by the way, your turn-key printing service is a joke. If I have been flying for 50 years and want to print out my logbook, maybe then I could justify the cost. I have many friends that use the program that would rather spend the hours required to transpose their logbooks to traditional paper than spend the money on your “service”. At this point, I’ll be one of them, as I can’t justify the money on additional logbook pages when the program doesn’t print correctly as is.
It would’ve been really nice if, as a gesture of good customer service, you could’ve sent me a complimentary pack of pages.
Their 2nd response:
Originally Posted by LBP Support
Hello,
If you follow the specific instructions, there is no harm that can be done to your computer. There is an alternative option, simply select the preferences/options icon when previewing your report and choose the reset page layout menu option. See the attached screen shot of the menu option you'll need to click.
Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
--------------------------
Sincerely,
Neal Culiner
NC Software, Inc.
http://www.nc-software.com
Lesson learned. I own LBP, the Pocket PC edition, the APDL, and now a $100 binder. If you plan on printing from LBP, make sure you check out the preview and make sure that the number of log entries is the same for both left and right pages. You would think the program would do that for you automatically, but apparently not. And apparently it requires a registry edit to fix.