Solved Report to Show More Columns Than Can Fit on One Row (1 Viewer)

LGDGlen

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Hi All

I am migrating my companies business away from running from a spreadsheet to an access database. As part of that I am recreating the reports that they produce as separate sheets from the data they have inputted.

One of the reports has a letter template with details of a delivery as the first tab of the new sheet it creates along with a second tab that shows upcoming deliveries that the client may have in the next few days. Clients require this 2nd page/tab for their stock planning.

I have created the first page easily using a report and it generates a nicely formatted page, the second page of the report is proving a bit tricky as the number of columns of data is more than can be easily displayed on an A4 sheet in landscape mode.

As I am new to all this stuff i'm trying to figure out the best way to display the data on 2 lines per record but not sure how to show header information in this instance.

I was looking at groups but that doesn't really fit as each record is a separate delivery and as such there is nothing that i can see to group the data with anyway, and i still don't quite understand how i can show the header information for the data.

This is what Page 1 looks like when a report is generated:

1634733924719.png


This is an example of what I need to create as Page 2 of the report. So i need to be able to add something to my current report that generates a separate page at the end of the report to show the following in an as close as possible format as it is below

1634733613322.png


It might be that it would be better to have effectively 2 separate reports generated together or it might be that a report is the worst way to achieve the above and it would be better to export the data directly to excel or a csv or have it written directly to an email or something else so I am happy to direction as to best ways to achieve the above but as it was going to be part of a process of generating the main Sales Order report i thought it would be better to keep things together

Thanks in advance

Glen
 

LGDGlen

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The_Doc_Man

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Just a question here... can you fit that in Landscape mode? If so, it is possible to have a page in portrait and a page in landscape (with a little bit of work). If this is too big even for Landscape then you might have a more serious problem. Having two separate reports might work for you, but you might also consider a parent/child situation where the first page is the MAIN form and the detailed list is a sub-form on a second page. That DEFINITELY can be a mixed scape situation.
 

LGDGlen

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@The_Doc_Man i'm certainly leaning toward 2 reports to stop the faffing around with page formatting between pages but with the second report definitely being wider that an A4 landscape i'm not sure how to achieve things in a pdf so maybe exporting directly to an excel file will be better
 

CJ_London

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presume you have considered reducing font size?

Also a lot of your columns are wider than they need to be so either reduce the length of the column names or move to a continuous report and set the headers narrower but taller. You could also or instead set the label vertical property so the text is rotated 90 degrees.

Another way but not so good, again with a continuous report is to put the data over two rows in the detail section. I've done this before and recommend a) offset the second row a bit (perhaps 20-30mm) and ensure no two 'columns' align and b) include a line at the top or bottom of the detail section and/or use alternate row colours to help visually differentiate each record.

Edit - just looking at your data you may be able to remove a few columns (thinking first 3) to be put in a group header instead - and if this is a report for the customer - do you need the customer column to be displayed?

Final comment - perhaps sending the customer an excel (or csv) file would be preferable for them since they could then easily upload to their own systems if required
 
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LGDGlen

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@CJ_London i've gone with generating an excel file report as that is what the clients are used to. in this instance there isn't really a good way to group things, maybe remove the 1st column as tbh they are the customer and should know their own name ;)

thanks all for your assistance/pointers/etc as usual every comment is read and salient points are taken on to cobble together the winning solution
 

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