I'm hoping someone can help me with formatting a report. I am tracking purchase orders for import items, and the report is basically set up to show all of the details of each item by purchase order number. I have the report sorted by item number within a larger grouping. I want to show each purchase order separately, so consequently there are times when each item number appears 2 or more times, one right below the other. I would like to format the report to shade the first record of each item number in a light gray, leaving the duplicates unshaded. There are quite a few columns in this report (legal size paper) which makes it difficult to read the further you go to the right. I think shading the first record in a group of like items will make it easier on the eye.

Any help would be great. Thanks!!

That will be difficult as it requires "reading ahead" to determine if there are any following duplicates. Either alternate background color ignoring groups or add a group footer so you can add additional space between each group.

Does that mean there is a way to gray out a line based on an if statment?

I tried the following.

On Repor Open

If me.category.value = "category name" then
me.detailfield1.backcolor = number
end if

The error message is "Can't find the field "category"...."