Using Multiple Report Sections

Troubleshooting

Report Section Formatting

I keep getting blank spaces in report sections, and I need a quick way of removing them.

To quickly remove blank spaces within report sections and tighten up the alignment of the objects positioned within the sections, use the Fit Section command available from the right-click menu of each report section.

Crystal Reports in the Real WorldAdvanced Formatting

Often, a report section needs to be more than simply one color or another. A report with many rows might need some color to help guide the readers eye and make each line distinctly separate from the next. In the following sample, the report Chap7AdvFormat.rpt created earlier is modified to improve readability:

1. Open the Chap7AdvFormat.rpt report.
    
2. From the Report menu, select Section Expert. When the Section Expert dialog window opens, select the Details section and click the Color tab.
    
3. As previously described, checking the Background Color box enables you to set all the Detail lines to a single color. The intent here is to highlight the detail lines so they appear distinctly different from the detail line above and below to improve readability. Click the x+2 button and enter the following text into the code window:
    
    

   If Remainder(RecordNumber,2)=1 Then
   
    crAqua
   
   Else
   
    DefaultAttribute;
   
   

    
4. Finally, go back to the Section Expert. Select Group Footer from the list of sections and check the box labeled New Page After.
    
5. Now, each group starts on a new page, and long groups have detail lines defined by color. The color improvement can be seen on page 3 of the report.
    

   Figure 7.13. Records are delimited by color for improved readability.

    
6. Save the report as Chap7AdvFormatPaginated.rpt.