Hi all

The VFP report engine has always looked at the template, ie detail band height, rather than evaluating the height of what is actually going to be printed, when deciding whether or not there is enough space left at the bottom of the page before printing the next item.
If there is less than a detail band height of space left, the printing instead starts at the top of a new column or page. This causes wasted space at the bottom of each page.

Consider for example that one is printing a product catalogue. One has created a two column report with detail bands containing the following:


Detail band 1: Picture Template (for photo)(remove if blank)




Detail Band 2: ProdCode: ProdName:
Detail Band 2: Proddetails: (memo- stretch with overflow)

The Height of Detail Band 1 = 3 inches
The Height of Detail Band 2 = 0.4 inches.

This would normally print lets say 3 photos in each column.
However, not all products have photos, and Proddetails (memo) vary in length for each product.

Problem: At the bottom of each column of the report, there is always a lot of wasted space.

Cause: Somehow the VFP report always seems to look at the maximum detail band height (in this case 3 inches) to decide if it will print another record or not. If there is less than 3 inches space from the bottom, it leaves that space blank and starts a new column. (even though there may not be images for the next few records, so it could have printed another 6 or 7 lines of text fields before reaching the bottom of the page)

Is there now a solution to this problem with the new report writer?

Is it possible to double click on Detail-Band-1 and in the general tab, & run an Expression in the “on entry” or “on exit” to evaluate if the next record has a photo or not, and if not, allow the text fields to be printed (if enough space)?

regards