Top new features include label printing, automatic location fields, voice memos, and easier sharing; Bento for Mac available for first time on Mac App Store

United Kingdom. – March 16, 2011 – FileMaker today shipped Bento 4 for Mac, now available on the Mac App Store, and Bento 1.1 for iPhone, and Bento 1.1 for iPad. With many new features including the ability to print labels, export libraries with data, automatically add geographical locations to records and lock down forms, Bento 4 is a major next step for the popular personal database family.


FileMaker logo“People just love the way Bento helps them organize their lives – especially their work tasks like managing contacts and tracking projects,” said Ryan Rosenberg, vice president of marketing and services for FileMaker, Inc. “We’ve enhanced the entire product line: Bento for Mac, Bento for iPad, and Bento for iPhone to provide you with a major productivity boost at your desk and when you’re on the go.”

Early customer reviewer praise for Bento 4
“I run a small external cleaning company and Bento has helped enormously in keeping detailed customer records, invoice and payment details, marketing information, scheduling work activity and marketing, recording employee hours and mileage and even calculating details for my annual tax returns. This product is fantastic and so easy to maintain!”  said Chris Cooper, Owner of Cooper Cleaning Services.

In Bento 4, you can create custom labels or choose from more than 250 ready-to-use Avery and Dymo label formats for mailing labels, inventory tags, name badges, file folders and many other uses. Labels can be customised with information from your database and with images.

“With built-in support for a wide array of the most popular Avery labels, Bento makes it easy to print labels for business or home use,” said Brenda Dillon, Group Product Manager for Avery Dennison Office Products.

Sharing databases is simpler than ever using Bento 4. For the first time, you can export Bento libraries populated with data and share these with other users. Now sending a complete library to another Bento user is as easy as emailing a file. You can also share your great ideas with the world by sending your custom Bento templates directly to the popular Bento Template Exchange from within Bento 4. The Bento Template Exchange features over 800 free downloadable templates that bring to life the huge variety of uses for Bento.

Bento 4 is faster and easier to use. With faster launch times, the new version allows you to lock forms to prevent unwanted changes to a layout, easily switch from Table view to Form view, search by date ranges, and automatically create media fields.

While many software products allow you map an address, Bento goes one step further by automatically capturing the locations where your activities occur. With the addition of a new location field type, Bento 4 will automatically log your exact location using WiFi, GPS, or cell tower triangulation, depending on which Mac or iOS device you may be using when you enter or modify a record.  With automatic location fields, you can record the location of site inspections, log customer visits, track travel sites, or capture survey locations.

Bento 1.1 for iPhone and Bento 1.1 for iPad
Bento for iPhone and Bento for iPad have both received significant updates.  You can now record voice memos into media fields on your mobile devices and tie them to your records, perfect for capturing events, logging meetings for later review, and just capturing notes without typing.  Voice memos can be synched with Bento 4 for the Mac.

Bento for Mac users can make more use of their information on the Bento for iPhone and Bento for iPad.  Now you can sync iCal tasks from the Mac, edit simple list data on your iPhone, and use related records to link libraries. 

Other enhancements include multi-tasking and improved support for the iPhone Retina display.

For the first time ever, Bento for iPhone and Bento for iPad will be available in multiple languages including: Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch.

A helpful demonstration video is available to watch, which highlights all the new functions Bento 4. Please use the following link to view: http://fmdl.filemaker.com/MISC/bento4/bento4_bento_ipad_iphone_ed_rev_guide.mov