Sliding's not enough

[scolesm]

Hi all,

My problem now is as follows:

I have a database up and running that is filled with products (so I can't post it due to privacy issues).

My company needs to print out the Specifications of these products in order to send to customers. I just can't make a layout that I feel comfortable actually presenting to customers due to the amount of white space I'm creating.

Each product has 9 categories, brought in through portals. Each of these categories contains between 8-15 fields.

I need to make a layout that prints properly if every single field is filled (worst-case scenario), but that also prints if various amounts are. Some products also do not contain certain categories.

Right now, for printing, I've separated the layout into three different pages and scripted a print of all of them. This works, but if page one only contains 2 categories with 3 records, it looks embarassingly blank.

I'd like to be able to create one layout which prints straight across page boundaries, but I don't want the start of a category to be on the bottom of one page and then the rest of it to be on the next.

Is there any possible solution out there to make a decently printable document?

Thank you very much,

Michael

[Fitch]

Have you tried printing from the related table using subsummary parts, rather than from the parent table using portals?

[scolesm]

I'm sorry to say that Sub-Summaries still baffle me. My FM freezes whenever I search the help So that's just a different problem.

Would I put a subsummary after every category, and if so what do I sort it by?

I'm gonna start looking into them more, but if it's simple and explainable, feel free to give me a hand.

Thanks,

Michael

[scolesm]

Alright, I have a little better understanding of subsummaries, but I don't quite understand how to implement the printing from the related table will condense the number of pages I use.

I'm working on a sample of this database so you can see my problem

[ShawnR]

Can you make a Calc field that will condense all 8 - 15 other fields into one field for your printing?

Shawn

[Genx]

It's really hard to visualise, can't you create a clone and fill it with false products, deleting all unecessary relationships / tables in the process?.. Or even screen shots of what you have at the moment... you can blur out the contents if it's the data you're concerned about.