continue text on another report 1

[asramala]

Hi-

I have a report that must fit onto one page. However, some memo fields on the report have a lot of text and won't fit into their allotted spaces on the form. I can't use the can grow/shrink property because the report is based on a standard state issued form and must look the same as the paper report. The state uses a "continuation" form where people can enter the text that doesn't fit on the initial form. I want to make a continuation report in Access to catch the rest of the text that doesn't fit onto the initial form. Any ideas on how can I get the text from the memo fields that doesn't fit onto the initial form to bump over to the "continuation" report?

Thanks!
Alisa

 

[mdthornton]

I think you'd need to have change your query to look at the length of the text field(s) and if it was over a certain threshold output either a proportion of the text or better still if you can do it just "see continuation sheet...". You could do this by setting the control source on the report to something like:

=iif(len([myText]) > maxLength, "See continuation sheet...", [myText])

Then write another report & query which would show the full text where necessary, eg:

=iif(len([myText]) <= maxLength, &quot;&quot;, [myText])

Depending on how complex the form is and how many fields you have to do this for you could make this report a subreport of the main or play around with this in the queries themselves. Hope this makes sense Good Luck,
Mike

 

[propertrev]

Many months later...

I've got exactly the same problem. If you're still watching did you solve it with the posted suggestion from mdthornton? That wouldn't work for me as it is unacceptable to the authorities to have just &quot;see continuation sheet&quot; on the front sheet and the whole text on the second sheet.
In any event, a solution based around the length of the memo field using the len function isn't ideal as the length is not strictly linked to the amount of space used because of embedded control characters mainly caused by users entering carriage return rather than wrapping text in the original input form. If it's important to have an exact continuation on the second sheet with nothing missing and nothing duplicated then I've come up with another idea but I would be interested in other solutions too....

Print the whole field on the front sheet and make sure the box can't grow. Then it will just stop when you fill the first box. Then print the whole field again on the continuation sheet, make sure the box is the same size but this time let it grow. Make an empty text box the same size as the first screen memo print box, lay it over the top of the continuation box and set its background to solid. That way it will mask the part that was already printed on the first sheet.

Only problem is you've then got a blank area on the continuation sheet. I don't know how to shrink that down but I suppose there's nothing to stop you putting other controls over the top of the blank text box for anything else you want to print on the continuation sheet.