Controlling Layout Of Continuous Report

[Reese]

Disclaimer: Please read whole post before asking why I need this or saying "You'll never need that" or "bad idea, change your end product to look different." Thank you.
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I am sure the answer is going to be "no", but is there anyway--even a complicated way--that would allow me to not only change a continuous report to be horizontal (instead of vertical), but also allow me to start a new horizontal line after 6 records have appeared on the first horizontal line?

In other words, for a continuous report displaying up to 8 results, have the text box layout be like this:

TextBox1 TextBox2 TextBox3 TextBox4 TextBox5 TextBox6
TextBox7 TextBox8

Instead of this:

TextBox1
TextBox2
TextBox3
Etc.

Here is the situation, starting with the desired end result:

-This is for a report that is used to print a physical invoice that is taken to events facilitated by a zoo where live animals are brought to a client's event. This report includes contact info, location, program info, space for hand-written notes, space for a hand-written list of what animals will be taken on the program, as well as a legal disclaimer for the client and a slip at the bottom of the page that is cut off and given to the client at the end with a link to a post-event online evaluation survey.

- Various in-person and out-of-database factors, including the fact that a small section at the bottom of the invoice must be cut off and given left with the client, require that the entire invoice must fit onto one letter-sized page.

-When the client is a returning client, there is also a subreport on the invoice that is based on a query that displays the animals that went on their last program--which can be up to 8 animals. This way, when writing the current list, I can avoid repeats.

- When first creating this database, I was a novice and did things that I now realize weren't best practice. For example, the fields to record what animals went on a program are in the same table as all of the other event information (Animal_1, Animal_2, etc.) instead of being normalized (a separate table with just one Animal field and linked via relationships to the Event table).

- Admittedly this was bad database design, but it turned out to have a positive side. With this design, the subreport that I mentioned isn't continuous and I have enough control over the layout to ensure that up to 8 fields can fit within 2 horizontal lines across the invoice.

- Before anyone asks, I have found--admittedly complicated--ways to work around issues such as finding out how often a certain animal goes out on programs, etc. The current database design works just fine, but in hindsight I am thinking about trying to normalize the animal fields into a separate table that is linked to the events table via relationships.

- Before I can do that however, I need to solve the continuous report issue. A normal continuous report would be vertical and that would completely change the layout of the invoice. That wouldn't be a problem except that the layout requirements that I mentioned before mean that this subreport MUST remain in a horizontal orientation.


...Okay, I admit, complicated situation and I'm sure people will think that I have my priorities wrong (they would probably place normalized tables as more important than the layout of a printed report). I am fully prepared to accept that the answer to my question is "no," I just thought I'd ask and see if anyone had any ideas.

Thanks.

 

[Ranman256]

try looking at report setup, set multi columns,
the default is fill left to right

this may be what you want.

 

[Reese]

Ranman, that may work. I experimented with creating a simple fake table just to play around with your suggestion. In Report view it doesn't change anything, but in Print view it behaves exactly in the manner that I was hoping.

I'll need to experiment with it in more detail by putting it into an actual copy of the invoice and populating it with animals instead of dummy information before I know this will definitely work. But it certainly points me in the right direction. Thanks!

 

[Minty]

You may find that inserting the 8 textbox part of your report as a sub report will work better for the layout. You apply columns to it and keep the rest of the report "normal". That may also work better for your data being normalised.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I think I would shrink the font size to fit 8 items in a single horizontal row, to font size 6 or even smaller.

I struggle to see how you could do this with a multi-column report

 

[Reese]

You may find that inserting the 8 textbox part of your report as a sub report will work better for the layout.

It actually already is a subreport. While the information is from the same table as the rest of the information, it isn't from the same record. The animal list is from the PREVIOUS event that the client booked, so the subreport is based on a query that is based on the Event table. The reason to display the previous event's animal list is so that, when writing the current event's animal list a week before the event, I know what animals not to put on the list and can avoid bringing the same animals.

When/if I transfer the animal lists to a new table, the subreport will still be based on a query, but that query will in turn be based on the new table, not the Events table. Thank you for the suggestion, however.

I think I would shrink the font size to fit 8 items in a single horizontal row, to font size 6 or even smaller.

I struggle to see how you could do this with a multi-column report

When I designed the current layout, I did try to fit it into one row--usually it's only 5-6 animals, though sometimes it may be 8. 6 animals fits fine on one row but 8 certainly doesn't--at least with the current size 9 font. And I did experiment with size 8 at least, but that also wouldn't fit all 8 text boxes so I went back to size 9 since it was easier to read.

I could lower the font size to 6, but that would be REALLY hard to see. While I am the primary one to read the content of the subreport when making the animal list a week in advance, sometimes our volunteer facilitators are forced to change the animal list because an animal may be sick that day, etc. So they also have to read it as well (so they can also avoid bringing duplicate animals), and many of them are on the older side. There's no way that a 70 year old with thick reading glasses would be able to read size 6 font.

Again, thank you for the suggestion, and I will take it into account when I experiment with the multi-column report in more detail.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I don't see how a multi-column report can help. It basically puts full rows into narrower columns, so you can get 2 or 3 sets of data across the page. (similar ot a telephone dialling list)

have you tried a landscape format, rather than portrait.

An alternative is to have the 8 text boxes pre-loaded on the from as box1, 2, 3 ... box8, and then coerce the continuous form data into a temporary table, so that you can bind the report to the temporary table.

The complicated bit is now to iterate a series of 8 queries to append the records into the temporary table (one for each of the 8 potential outputs)

 

[Reese]

I don't see how a multi-column report can help. It basically puts full rows into narrower columns, so you can get 2 or 3 sets of data across the page. (similar ot a telephone dialling list)

Dave, thanks for your concern but the multi-column technique actually worked great. I just did another series of experiments where I used a multi-column subreport based on a separate animal list table and then opened an invoice report and everything came up perfect. I tried it with a 5 animal list and an 8 animal list.

You might be thinking that it won't work because when viewing these reports in Report View, it doesn't. The layout is the standard vertical layout. But these reports will never be viewed on screen--they are for direct physical printing. And in Print View the multi-column function loads each subsequent entry in a new column, until an upper limit is hit (in this case 6). Then a new row begins.

To make it work, I narrowed the row and column spacing to 0" in Page Setup and the subreport's width and height to be just enough for the Animal textbox. I also set the number of columns to 6 and set the column layout to "Across then Down."

Thank you again for your suggestions, though.

And a second big thank you to Ranman. Your suggestion is perfect. I haven't implemented it yet; that won't be until I have enough time to really change such a complex aspect of the database, but the small experiments worked great. Hopefully there will be no issues when I make the full transition.