Whitespace before group header

[mcohen]

I have a report with a group header. I would like some blank vertical space (i.e. a gap) to appear before each header, except when the header is at the top of a page. Is there a way to do this in the report designer?

[mcohen]

Re: Whitespace before group header

I don't think the above is currently possible in Alpha Five. I would suggest a new region property 'Shrink start of band if at top of page'. (The existing region property 'Shrink contents of band' effectively means suppress blank space at the end of band, regardless of position on page)

[madtowng]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Something visual would make it easier to determine how to do it if it can be done (most things can be done).

[mcohen]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Taking the Alpha Sports 'Product by Vendor' report, supposing we wanted to have some blank space between vendors. We could do this either in region Group 'Vendor_Id' Footer or Group 'Vendor_Id' Header. (I used the Header - see screenshot).

In the rendered PDF, notice the blank space at the top of page 3 for vendor V004. This is not needed since the vendor is starting at the top of a page; I would like the blank space to be suppressed.

[madtowng]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Taking the Alpha Sports 'Product by Vendor' report, supposing we wanted to have some blank space between vendors. We could do this either in region Group 'Vendor_Id' Footer or Group 'Vendor_Id' Header. (I used the Header - see screenshot).

In the rendered PDF, notice the blank space at the top of page 3 for vendor V004. This is not needed since the vendor is starting at the top of a page; I would like the blank space to be suppressed.

You might want to try removing the white space from the Vendor ID header, and put it at the end of the vendor id footer.

If you still want that much white space on the first page, after the report header, I would put the white space directly in the report header.

[mcohen]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Thanks for your feedback. Putting the white space at the end of the footer gives me a problem in my actual application - I will explain it in terms of this Alpha Sports example. I have a group at a higher level than Vendor, call it VendorClass. A VendorClass should always start on a new page, which is achieved using group property 'Start each group on a new page'. If the content of the last Vendor group in a VendorClass happens to finish at the bottom of a page, the Vendor group footer will include its white space at the top of the next page, and the VendorClass 'Start each group on a new page' setting will cause it to start on the following page. The overall effect is that there will be a blank page in the report. Do you have a solution for this?

[madtowng]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Thanks for your feedback. Putting the white space at the end of the footer gives me a problem in my actual application - I will explain it in terms of this Alpha Sports example. I have a group at a higher level than Vendor, call it VendorClass. A VendorClass should always start on a new page, which is achieved using group property 'Start each group on a new page'. If the content of the last Vendor group in a VendorClass happens to finish at the bottom of a page, the Vendor group footer will include its white space at the top of the next page, and the VendorClass 'Start each group on a new page' setting will cause it to start on the following page. The overall effect is that there will be a blank page in the report. Do you have a solution for this?

I have not been able to get rid of blank pages yet when doing something like that. Maybe someone knows how to get rid of the blank page. If it is possible, that would actually save me some time each month as I run my reports.

[peteconway]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Set each set section or group to shrink by right clicking the head of each section and click the check box.

[mcohen]

Re: Whitespace before group header

Set each set section or group to shrink by right clicking the head of each section and click the check box.

Thanks for the feedback, but that won't help in this scenario. The blank space is required, except for the last Vendor group in a VendorClass.