Multi-page Reports; (10-15) per record?

[Lee Bjornson]

I need to have each record produce between 10-15 pages (as in a multi-page contract). Alpha's Report/Letter Designer seems to stop at 23" of vertical space, allowing only 2 11" pages. Most of the pages are conditional (may or may not print for a given contract); how can I keep blank pages from printing? Any (ALL) thoughts will be greatly appreciated!

P.S. Time is of the essence.

Lee

[Gary Smith]

RE: Multi-page Reports; (10-15) per record?

Just a thought:
Using a report instead of a letter will give you the space you need. However, I'm not sure how you would work the conditional pages/paragraphs into the design.
Gary

[Lee Bjornson]

RE: Multi-page Reports; (10-15) per record?

I've tried bothe Letters and Report; same vertical space restriction.

Lee

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Multi-page Reports; (10-15) per record?

Lee, you might try saving the lengthy contract text in a Rich Text Memo field. Each record in your primary table would contain fields describing the contract, date, author, subject, and so on, *plus* a rich text memo field. The text of the contract could be stored in the memo field.

Using this approach I just stored a 17 page contract and then printed it out in a simple report.

In the report layout, when I put the rich text memo field in the detail section of the report I stretched the little box containing the field name the full width of my report, but left it only one line tall. Takes up just one line in the detail section of the report. Then I made certain that the properties of the memo field permitted *Allow Growth When Printing*. It's not necessary to set aside space in the layout for the entire contract when this property of the memo field is set.

Worked like a charm. All 17 pages printed out just fine.

Maybe something like this will help you.

-- tom

[whanigsberg]

RE: Multi-page Reports; (10-15) per record?

Here's another thought.

I once had to print a report which needed a lengthy header text--many pages. This text was invariate. The report detail had the live data.

I had received the introductory text in a word document and it occured to me that I could just embed the doc in the report header. Doing so was straightforward.

It makes me wonder whether we can embed a file in a layer of a conditional object. That would open up all sorts of possibilities.

Bill

[Lee Bjornson]

RE: Multi-page Reports; (10-15) per record?

OK, I've finally figured out how to make Conditional Objects, RichText, and page breaks work to produce extremely long documents (with record specific text inserted) in which each page, or groups of pages, conditionally print for each record. I'll start a new thread with all the details, including a complete description of what the original problem was, but the quick answer follows.

Create a conditional object for each page (or group of pages that belong together), starting at the 1st page and making the object large enough for 1 whole page. Set the condition which causes the page to print -- this is the "conditional page" on which you will enter your text; leave the Default page blank. Create a RT object on the conditional page and fill it with your text, including record fields (or expressions) where appropriate. NOTE: multiple columns are possible, but very difficult! After you've proofed the page, shrink the RT object as small as possible, making sure you've turned on the properties allowing growth and shrink during printing. Next, shrink the conditional object so it just contains any associated RT objects, and set its "allow shrink" property.

Be sure to put a conditional page break at the beginning of each page (within the RT object), making it conditional on the previous page printing.

Hope this helps others.