>I have to concur with the thought that it has something to do with the underlying data. If there is no data (the cursor is empty) the report form will just flash on the screen as you are describing. Are you certain that the code is doing the exact same thing when you are previewing or sending to the printer?

well, yes and no!

what I have discovered is that if I move the record pointer away from the record and then back to it, the problem goes away. But I can't make any sense of that behaviour. The debugger shows that I'm already on the record (not eof() or anything like that) and that I leave it and return to it. I'm not using any memory variables in relation to the data or the reports that have any relevance to the current record. No scatters are taking place and no relevant flags are set on moving the record pointer. So I can't see why moving it should matter...

Harry