Conditional Layout? Portions of a Printoff On/Off?

[Mark L]

Users have requested the option to customize reports by choosing which sections of a report they'd like to see. Is there a practical way to do this?

Example:

A "full," default report has sections A through H (each section is stored it a seperate field) - users would like the option to only see sections A, B, E and H. How can this be achieved?

My Initial Guess:

I'm thinking that I could have a switch field corresponding to each section of the report - "Y" indicates Print it, "N" indicates do not print it. Each section defaults to "Y" - but the user could opt to change a given section to "N" - but I'm not sure how I'd make the layout function conditionally.

Also, I'm not sure that if a section is opted "off" - then how will I move/clear that section's blank/empty space.

Any and all thoughts (or better yet, examples) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark

[Ender]

With each section in a separate field, it should be easy enough to use a calc field to display only those sections that are selected to print:

OutputSection1 (calculation, text result) = case(PrintChoiceSection1 = "Y"; TextSection1)

OutputSection2 (calculation, text result) = case(PrintChoiceSection2 = "Y"; TextSection2)

Then the Output calcs would be put together with merge fields in a text block:

<<OutputSection1>>

<<OutputSection2>>

With sliding up activated for this text object and any objects below it (Format->Sliding/Printing,) the white space will be compressed.

You could alternatively use one Output calc that assembles the sections. You may also want to put section labels within the calc, using a different font size or style or something.

[Mark L]

Thanks Ender for the speedy response.

It seems relatively simple to implement - so off I go to try it out.

Thanks so much!

Mark