I've gotten pretty confident about data modeling with related tables and using join-tables for many-to-many relationships, but I'm finding myself rther fuzzy at how I can then present the related data in a record print-out.

For instance, let's say I have a table for Paintings. The curator needs to keep track of various Actions performed on each painting (Conservation, Loan, Valuation, etc.), so I have created a simple related table to hold these events. Now I can make nice reports at year's end that, say, list all the paintings Loaned in 2008. I would create these reports on the Actions table and pull in whatever Painting info I want from the related records.

But I'm unclear on how I would print out a complete record for each Painting that lists its complete *Action* history. I would be in the Paintings context -- would I place a portal to Action information in a sub-summary section of the layout, with the portal set to 'non-printing' but the fields set to print? Will that work? Do I just make the portal really long to accomodate the largest possible list of actions - will a portal 'reduce size of enclosing part'?

It feels like there ought to be a way to do this more simply using merge fields, But I'm not quite seeing how. . .

Hope this is a simple one I'm just being slow about - thanks.

Albert

You answered your own question: "create these reports on the Actions table." Summarize by painting and put the painting's info in the subsummary part.

(Portals can slide up and reduce: it might work OK for you, but it's generally more reliable to print from the child table.)

Ahhhh . . . okay, I had feared that might wind up being the answer. . . which leads to my follow-up question:

Apart from the Actions table, I have a couple of other similarly related auxilliary tables keeping track of things like, say, "Subjects" -- this would actually be a Join-table structure. Will there be any way to print up a "complete record" that pulls in the data from more than one related table in one report layout? That's why I was thinking (hoping) to use the main Painting context for the report . . .

It does seem a little disappointing if one can pull in all related data into a single print format. -- given that it can all be displayed on the single data-entry layout!

Albert

Well given that scenario you might go ahead and try the sliding portals. Otherwise you may end up importing into a temporary reporting table or something like that.