Reports for Pre-Printed Stationery?

sparkz

I get the feeling this isn't possible due to the lack of an earlier answer but I'll just check.

Is it possible to do a report for pre-printed stationery? The main problem is the detail has to be fixed in depth and can only contain so many lines. Is there any way of ensuring the footer starts at a fixed place?

Many thanks

gordk

Yes it can be done
here are some hints
Look at using the engine object to control curx cury positions
the line# or line variable to decide when to force a newpage or to show a particular band
you will probably find that you want to use some boolean variables
to track if you are starting or finished an area.
ie in a detail header set "done" to false, in oap of footer set it to true
use headers footers of 0 height to have their events available to reset vars.
use child bands, can be unattached for, interim footer headers, they can be displayed by calling engine.showband(bandname);
ie 7 detail recs then a footer
detail data oap event
begin
if not done then
begin
if <line#> = 7 then engine.showband(mychildfooter);
end;
end;
inre your other post
you can either use onget value events of report to populate memos with data
coupled with fruserdatasets
or move the datasets datset name.next prior first last. you can also retrieve record count of dataset from script.
last just because a particular table appears to be unrelated you can make it related at the data level by setting up connections before loading and running a report.

sparkz

Thanks for the reply. Sound like good news. I have a play around with preprinted stuff now it sounds like it can be done.

Regarding the datasets. I don't know if I've misunderstood something. Can I have 2 datasets using fruserdatasets? I've only seen examples using one. I'd need this as my two details blocks would have different numbers of records.

Thanks

gordk

see masterdetail uds demo for more than 1 uds.
remember
you dont always need to use frxuserdatasets
when a frxdbdataset is connected to a band it controls the movement through the records of of that dataset.

if not connected to a band and a band rowcount is used the dataset will stay on the same record until you force it to move
you can also limit the number of records an frxdbdataset displays by setting the range properties of the frxdbdataset.

scan an save an image of the preprinted form if possible, then
add the image as a background image to the design page use it to help position
textobjects and bands
BTW work in pixels makes life easier.

sparkz

Brilliant, thanks for all the advice!

Nice idea for the pre-printed! That'll save a lot of paper!

gordk

Hi Sparkz
i forgot to mention when you scan the ppform to only scan the printable area
so it coincides with the printer being used.
pp forms can have some areas that are outside printer capabilities.