Electronic Logbook Printing

Dan208B

Dan208B

Well-Known Member
I'm looking for suggestions on how to print an electronic logbook for interviews with major airlines. I haven't gotten the call yet, but I would like to have a plan if I'm lucky enough for it to happen. I have seen a few services the bind it very nicely, but they all seem to say it will take 2 weeks to receive it. I think it's good to have an up-to-date logbook and many majors aren't giving people 2 weeks notice for interviews, so it seems like self-printing or taking it to kinko's is the best option. What have other people done? Also has anyone heard of any airlines having issues with this? I was dead set on real logbooks for years but I finally copied everything over and it seems like many airlines would prefer the nice printouts now. Thanks for any advice!
 
Does your logbook program have some sort of export to PDF feature? If so, just do that, take it to kinkos, have them print it double sided on nice paper and then spiral bind it. Works good, lasts long time.
 
Yes, I have logbook pro and it looks like there are several ways to do this. Has anyone tried this and which export method did you use? They look quite a bit different.
 
Kinda off the wall, thought provoking question...isn't one of the old wife's tale questions "did you call in sick for this?"?? How the hell do they expect that not to happen if they aren't giving 2 weeks? The answers to these conundrums all tie together, I bet. Or maybe you're supposed to know when you need to bid vacation for the interview that you're gonna get. You can just schedule your printout to be manifested during the vacay, right before your interview. I'm just being facetious, of course. I never would have thought to do anything professional to an Elog.
 
falconvalley said:
Kinda off the wall, thought provoking question...isn't one of the old wife's tale questions "did you call in sick for this?"?? How the hell do they expect that not to happen if they aren't giving 2 weeks? The answers to these conundrums all tie together, I bet. Or maybe you're supposed to know when you need to bid vacation for the interview that you're gonna get. You can just schedule your printout to be manifested during the vacay, right before your interview. I'm just being facetious, of course. I never would have thought to do anything professional to an Elog.
Click to expand...

Haha I like your thinking! That's a great question. I wish I had an answer. Some airlines ask that, some don't. Or something along those lines at least. Some airlines are great with plenty of notice, but some are terrible. One major in particular is known for 3 days notice for interviews over the last few years. I know with my job sick might be the only way to make that happen. And then what if they ask? What's the right answer?
 
Perhaps something along the lines of "I was on turn 3 of 7 during day 2 of 4 and my phone rang. It was you. I grabbed my suitcase and walked up the jet bridge and over to gate C10, listed, got onboard and flew here. They don't even know I'm UNA, yet."
 
If you have a printer that has a duplex feature, you can print it yourself. I got a presentation binder (pino zangaro) and just printed it myself. 20 bucks for the binder on amazon and 15 for 150 sheets of paper. can print my own sheets whenever I need to and they look fine.
 
Dan208B said:
Yes, I have logbook pro and it looks like there are several ways to do this. Has anyone tried this and which export method did you use? They look quite a bit different.
Click to expand...

lbpprint_zpse6ed7c17.png


This way each page is separate when you export it to a PDF. Just make sure all your data ends up in the right column. If you logged stuff using custom fields (I used to have an "approach" custom field, before LBP had their own approach field) you'll need to decide if you need it to be displayed in your logbook and if so, you'll have to go to the custom templates tab right underneath the Flight Log Report and put it together.

The nice thing about spiral binding the report is that if you print your logbook now and then a year from now want to update it (although hopefully you'll be hired before then!) you can just print the new pages, glue the first new page to the back of the last old page, and then insert the rest of the new pages into the spiral bind.
 

Hey thanks for the great info here guys. So with a spiral-bound report, are you printing double-sided pages? What type of paper are you using and where did you purchase your spiral binding and such?
 
Dan208B said:
Hey thanks for the great info here guys. So with a spiral-bound report, are you printing double-sided pages? What type of paper are you using and where did you purchase your spiral binding and such?
Click to expand...

It was printing it back to back. If you do a blank coverpage first then your the LEFT side of your first page of flight data will go on the back of that. The front of the second page will be the RIGHT side of your first page of flight data. That's why you want to use the split reports function.

I had Kinkos print it on a slightly heavier than normal paper that was off white. For about 6000 hours of flight time (maybe 3500 flights?) it was less than $50 including the spiral binding and a hard plastic back and front cover.
 
I just went to Office Depot, got some high quality paper, printed it myself (off of Logbook Pro) and had Kinko's bind it. Worked pretty well, and I was the ONLY guy there with one logbook rather than 4 rubber banded together.
 
kellwolf said:
I just went to Office Depot, got some high quality paper, printed it myself (off of Logbook Pro) and had Kinko's bind it. Worked pretty well, and I was the ONLY guy there with one logbook rather than 4 rubber banded together.
Click to expand...
I printed mine from logbook pro using the split Jeppesen logbook and the PDF format saved on a flash drive. I used the heaviest paper at Kinkos that is not card stock I think it's 32#, had it printed and spiral bound at Kinkos with a plastic cover and backing for ~$30... It was 175 pages to give you an idea. I think it looks a lot better than my hand written logbooks. Hopefully this makes sense I wrote it on my phone and it's all jumbled and disorganized.
 
I use LogbookPro and I just printed mine a couple of weeks ago. I used the Jeppesen logbook format and printed it to PDF. Then printed the PDF.

I have a laser printer at home, so other than taking some time, it wasn't a big deal. You can do it without the extra software, but my printer has a setting to tell it "hey, I'm printing this double-sided" and it makes it pretty easy. In the print settings for Adobe Reader, there is a "print even pages" or "print odd pages" option. This works too.

Anyway, I printed the first set of pages, put them back in the printer the way the software told me to, and printed the backs.

My wonderful wife used a binding machine at one of her previous jobs, and has been wanting one for years. So we found one that was on sale for $50, and I bound it myself using these. They have worked great.

I then scanned my endorsements from my paper logs, edited the images for size so they'd fit on 8.5x11 paper, and printed those. I added them to the back of the second book. Took me a couple of hours, and Kinkos could have done it faster (and maybe cheaper) but I have the knowledge and equipment to do it now, and when I needed to add a page, I reprinted the last page so I could get it front and back and popped the new ones in in just a few minutes. Kinkos would have taken a lot longer for the 2 or 3 pages.

I know nothing about it except what's on the webpage, but this binding machine is on sale for $40.
 
msmspilot said:
I then scanned my endorsements from my paper logs, edited the images for size so they'd fit on 8.5x11 paper, and printed those..
Click to expand...

Again, really great info everyone, thank you for the replies! Anyone have any thoughts on whether major airlines care about seeing your original endorsements?
 
Dan208B said:
Again, really great info everyone, thank you for the replies! Anyone have any thoughts on whether major airlines care about seeing your original endorsements?
Click to expand...

I had my first (actually only) paper logbook with me in case they wanted to see anything like that, but they just looked through the printed out digital copy.
 
Bring your PDF file to FedEx, tell 'em what you want, pay the lady $12 and you're done. She did it right in front of me, in 5 minutes. I did this the day before I left for each interview. If you buy their paper it'll cost you about $60 total. Buy your own. www.logbooksolutions.com
 
BobDDuck said:
Does your logbook program have some sort of export to PDF feature? If so, just do that, take it to kinkos, have them print it double sided on nice paper and then spiral bind it. Works good, lasts long time.
Click to expand...

^^^ Yes, this! ^^^
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top