David, you're over-simplifying quite a bit when you say "the RW assumes there will be a picture".

The Report Writer doesn't "incorrectly" assume that there is going to be a picture. The Report Writer *correctly* performs its evaluations in a certain order when processing a band.

Because this order of evaluation is quite critical, and because in this case it is not making any mistakes about the order (sometimes it does, I grant you that <s>), the behavior you're talking about can't change. Print When has to be evaluated in a certain position in the events that occur during band processing.

However, there are ways to make this better in VFP 9 -- at least three possibilities, in fact.

I'm sorry it's taking me a while to get back to you. There are two reasons:

* -- I have a couple of workarounds in mind but am on-site with a client and have not had a chance to try them out.

* -- This issue is also getting quite a bit of attention internally, and I might have a better solution for you than either workaround (that's possibility #3 <s>).

For all three possibilities, however, you would change your report in a way that will give you the results you want. But Print When is still going to be evaluated when it is evaluated, and, when you have a picture template of a given size, the Report Writer makes room for an object of that size. All three possibilities stand the problem on its head <s>, but they do not change the existing behavior or these facts.

I will do my best to attend to this more fully in a while, possibly as a ReportTip message rather than in this thread -- if so, I will alert you to this thread in e-mail.

>L<