Microsoft Access Reports Question

[RodneyBlow]

For work, I am developing a database to track stroke times of valves. A report I have is to allow testing of those valves, giving the maximum stroke times, as well as a pretest and post test alignment. I have made the report simulate a table by making each text box border into a single line.

Now the problem:

Most of the text boxes are one line long, but some have to be taller. I can't figure a way to make all of the text boxes in the detail section the same height if one has to expand to accomodate the amount of text. I have tried to group all text boxes. I have tried sizing to the maximum possible required height, then setting the can shrink for the detail and controls to yes, but nothing seems to work.

Any suggestions?

 

[DaveVikingPE]

Here are some things I've done:

Is the data type "text" or is it "memo"? Memo data types can hold 65,535 characters and your report text box should accomodate a large default size on the page.

In report view, check the properties of your text boxes, make sure "can grow" is "Yes" and "can shrink" is "no." This will control the size of your text box pertaining to the amount of text displayed.

I've used Access extensively for many years and frankly reports are a pain. I've only had moderate "success" concerning getting what I've asked for and the hours spent agonizing over a report's format are better spent making a FORM look like I wanted the report to look. Here's why: with reports, once I've gotten it to look exactly like I want it, including headers, footers, titles, you-name-it, the slightest change in data or anything else screws up the formatting. By "fooling" a new form into thinking it's a report I'm able to control page breaks and text box sizes on a record-by-record basis. Now, to get a slick, tabular "report" a form could be tweaked appropriately, but I've found it easiest to simply export the data to Excel where I have even more control and shrinking-to-fit really does that, rather than cut off text.

My final recommendation is to "print" your report as a .pdf document and give it a few final tweaks prior to handing it in.

 

[paron]

Crystal Reports is much more flexible in its handling of variable-length data. In fact, it's more flexible, period.

But, short of buying new software, I agree with Dave Viking -- export to Excel and do it there. Ditto with charts and graphs; Access charting is just not as smooth as Excel.

You could use OLE and embed a spreadsheet in the report, which would give you a smoother approach, but OLE (or ADO) is a big memory hog and slow. Still, I use it sometimes.

You might fool around with subreports -- the main report is pretty graceful in its handling of variable-length subreports, I find.

Finally, there is a LOT more on Access in this site's sister site, Tek-tips.com

Ron