Shrinking Repeating Fields

[proton]

I don't know if this can be done, but I've always wondered. You know sometimes you do a report layout in Filemaker, and you have some fields that are bigger than others, so you allow extra space for them, but you also set it that anything below it can slide up based on all above or directly above and reduce the size of the enclosing part. That way you cut down on the number of pages that are printed.

Well I've always wondered, if a repeating field is on the layout, and it has say 8 repetitions, but for most of the records they only use the first 3 repetitions, is there some way I can get it do slide up and ignore the blank repetitions, thereby reducing the number of pages the report spans on? Hope this is clear and thanks in advance.

[LiveOak]

I just tried it in FM 5. It slides up and compresses the blank repetitions, even if they are in the middle repeats of a vertically displayed field.

1 1

3

3 --> 4

4 5

5

The tip here is if you don't know, TRY IT!

-bd

[proton]

Thanks LiveOak!! Geeze! I've been using Filemaker for years and never thought to try that with a repeating field! I'm using FM 4.0 but it still worked. Thanks a lot.

[ May 07, 2001: Message edited by: proton ]

[LiveOak]

I know what you mean. Most of us fall into a set of features we use regularly (except for John Mark Osborne who spends all his time stacking 500 copies of the same field to see what it does when he clicks on it!). -bd