many detail-sections? (1 Viewer)

[Fuga]

I´m trying to create a report. I have a few questions:

1. I´ve understood from this forum that there is no automatic table of contents function like in word. Is this right?

2. You cannot export your report to word if it contains charts? So you have to create your own table of contents?

This ought to make the report function in access quite useless if you ask me, so I guess I´m missing something. However, this is my problem:

My report looks like this:
1. A few introduktion pages (including the table of contents. as of now, I have put this in the report header. Is the report header limited?)

2. A review of products (with charts. I have put these in the detail section)

3. A second introduction (one page)

4. A second review of products, based on other data and containing different charts (do I need a second detail section?).

5. the summary.

How do I accomplish this? I´ve created a special report just for the TOC, and then linked it to the main report as an rtf.

Thanks!

Fuga.

 

[boblarson]

Fuga:

Access is not really a report writer, which does create some limitations for stuff like what you are trying to accomplish. Crystal Reports, or another actual report writer, are more suited to your situation than Access. That being said, you might be able to accomplish some of what you want by utilizing sub-reports in the details section.

I totally agree with your statement about Access being somewhat useless as far as reports go. I've been doing this for about 10 years now and I would rather get a root canal than have to really utilize the reports function in Access. I totally prefer using Crystal Reports, but not every place I've worked has had Crystal, so I've had to "make do" at times.

Now as far as Access is concerned, the thing to remember is that it was designed to be a small business tool and as it is kind of a Rapid Development database and application tool, it is not well-suited for every task that it has features within it to use. They COULD make things better, but there are other, more advanced, tools that have been designed for the functions (whether it be an application - so VB/VC#/V++, J#, or for reporting Microsoft has actually included Crystal Reports in it's developer tools), so they aren't likely going to enhance the functionality of Access in the forms and reports like some of us would like.

 

[shadow9449]

Fuga:

Access is not really a report writer, which does create some limitations for stuff like what you are trying to accomplish. Crystal Reports, or another actual report writer, are more suited to your situation than Access.

...I totally agree with your statement about Access being somewhat useless as far as reports go. I've been doing this for about 10 years now and I would rather get a root canal than have to really utilize the reports function in Access. I totally prefer using Crystal Reports, but not every place I've worked has had Crystal, so I've had to "make do" at times.

Bob:

What can Access reports not do that Crystal can do? I've been using Access reports for 12 years now and have yet to encounter something that I can't do.

SHADOW

 

[boblarson]

I think you'd be surprised at the ease and flexibility of Crystal Reports (although not easy to learn at first, but once you know it...) there are things that you can do such as drag and drop concatenation, you can create your own specified groups (for example, if I have several regions that I want to create but the data is not in that type of setup, I can still do it easily), you can have multiple heading and detail sections (and I'm not talking about multiple groupings, but multiple headers (and footers) that you can display at the same time for the same group or you can conditionally display them. The conditional formatting is much more powerful and not limited to only 3 conditions. I can go on for a long time, but I don't have time right now.

 

[shadow9449]

I think you'd be surprised at the ease and flexibility of Crystal Reports (although not easy to learn at first, but once you know it...) there are things that you can do such as drag and drop concatenation, you can create your own specified groups (for example, if I have several regions that I want to create but the data is not in that type of setup, I can still do it easily), you can have multiple heading and detail sections (and I'm not talking about multiple groupings, but multiple headers (and footers) that you can display at the same time for the same group or you can conditionally display them. The conditional formatting is much more powerful and not limited to only 3 conditions. I can go on for a long time, but I don't have time right now.

Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll pick up a book on Crystal one day. Sounds like those are things you have to use coding for in Access which may be why I've never "felt" that Access fell short of my needs. I just code my way...

SHADOW