>How do you solve these problems ? Comments ? I thought I read here on UT, for microsoft, the reportdesigner isn't a priority as a reportdesigner doesn't fit into the position where MS wants to situate VFP ...

You , sir, are correct. The VFP report writer certainly is not as powerfull as the rest of the product and has lagged behind. It is basically the same now as it was in 2.6. They added a few things, but it is really an 8 year old piece.

Now, what's the solution. There are many.

1. Use a third party report writer. There are many of these. R&R and Crystal Reports are the two popular ones that come to mind.

2. Extend the VFP report writer. You can do this yourself or buy a third party product. Things come to mind like GenRepoX, FoxFire, StoneField Reports, Bulls Eye reports. GenRepoX lets you have multiple detail lines, and it is free, it might be a good place to start.

3. Do your 'non-data' reports like error pages, letters, etc by automating word. It is fairly simple, you can generate the whole report in code or you can create a template or doc that has book marks or certain key words which you can replace like variables. If you customer doesn't have Word, just add the price of it to your quote.

Just a few of my thoughs... this topic could go on and on.

BOb