MR SLAM Formatter offers the user a plethora of options to customize their manifests and switch lists. You can choose a very basic document format similar to what JMRI provides.
Then you can make the documents easier to read by changing fonts and adding borders.
You can spice things up by adding pick up / set out messages and COLOR. Most fields have a color selection. There are 11 different colors that you can choose from.
For layouts that use switch lists, you can simplify life for your yard masters by choosing the options to sort the trains based on arrival time, suppress printing of trains that have no work, and putting each train on a separate page. You can also choose to display “Hold” cars.
switch list with page brakes and suppressing no work trains
You can also choose to print the documents in a 2 column / page layout instead of just 1. This saves paper, but of course you cannot fit as much information on a line in this layout.
manifest in 2 column / page, portrait
To gain more space for information while still saving paper and using the 2 column / page format, you can print in landscape mode. The use of smaller font sizes can also help make room for more information on a line. Note that the program supports letter and legal sized paper and, for our international users, paper sizes of A3 – A6.
Besides nicer formatting, MR SLAM Formatter can also sort your car movements based on track.
manifest sorted by track
There are a large number of additional settings that the user can employ to customize documents to their liking. All of these settings maybe applied to both a manifests and switch lists, or you can have separate settings for each document type.
Coming in version 2.07 (planned for early Sept. 2024) of MR SLAM Formatter is the ability to insert car images into your manifests & switch lists. You can use car images with any of the aforementioned options such as 2 columns / page and landscape mode. Images for a car are chosen based on the road name and number. If no such images is available, then an image matching the car’s type and color is used. If there is no image matching any of these criteria, the car’s type & color information is displayed.