A way to force another page?

[whardy]

If a report only has one page, I still need it to print a second page in order to print the footer. What is the most efficient way to force another page, even if it is blank?

[comment]

Some more details would be useful - e.g. is this a list report? What parts does it have? Why is it necessary "to print a second page in order to print the footer"? Do you have a title footer on the first page? And are you actually printing or saving to PDF?

 

[whardy]

List Report: Yes

Title Footer: Yes

Printing: User can choose whether to Print or save to PDF after viewing

Why: A task for printing an announcement sheet for a non-profit was taken from a graphic designer using inDesign and given to someone who does not need to learn inDesign nor FileMaker. It is basically a list, so I think FileMaker should be able to handle it, although taxing it (and me!) because of a couple "graphical" requirements FileMaker doesn't do naturally. 

Header: Graphic, text, date, etc.

SubSummary: Type of announcement

Body: Announcement

Trailing Grand Summary: Horizontal lines for the user to write on that fills the space after the announcements until the footer

Footer: Financial graphic, text (THIS IS REQUIRED at the bottom of the 2nd page after the horizontal lines for user notes)

Title Footer: "Continued on back" if more than one page.

Problem: There are too many announcements for some note lines and financial graphic to fit on the first page, but not enough to insure there is a second page.

I'm not sure if that made it easier or worse...

(I'm considering adding one hidden announcement that can contain a variable number of returns to force a page break. I just have to figure out how to make that look smooth and not stupid. )

[comment]

I have seen a similar requirement a few times before, but not with a footer. Usually the requirement is to print some information at the bottom of the last page - which is not necessarily the 2nd page. It seems you're confident there will never be a 3rd page.

Anyway, I don't know of an easy solution to either. The best I have seen is similar to your idea: place a shrinking global field in the Trailing Grand Summary part and add carriage returns until the page count increases to 2. This can be made more efficient by starting at some maximum and moving down by powers of two.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by comment

[whardy]

I thought that might be the answer. I know the get(PageCount) is new, but where will it be valid? I've tried to get it show up in Data View during a Preview, but the value returns blank, even though there are two pages. When does get(PageCount) actually show data? 

[comment]

6 minutes ago, whardy said:

When does get(PageCount) actually show data? 

I don't know. I am still on v.18. I have seen some bug reports regarding this function and its associated symbol. Meanwhile you can use the old method of entering Preview mode, going to the last page and getting the page number.

 

[whardy]

Ok. Thanks for the help. I'm already doing that, so I'll hold on to that, It's more foolproof.