Paging in Preview

[mmwchac]

This occurs on some reports and not others and we haven't isolated the factor that contributes to it but when some reports are done running in preview mode, you can navigate directly to the last page with the navigation buttons. On other reports you press the button to go directly to the last page and Crystal generates each page individually (and it tells you it's doing that in the lower left of the screen)and you have to wait to get to the last page. It's especially annoying on large reports. I thought I read somewhere that this might have something to do with either formatting or evaluation time.

???

 

[kenhamady]

I would guess that the reports that jump directly probably have a "Page X of Y" field, which forces it to layout all of the pages before it shows you the first page.

Or, it could be that the slow reports have subreport which simply take more time. When you see the first page of each report does it say:

page 1 of 1+
or
Page 1 of 70

Ken Hamady, On-site Custom Crystal Reports Training & Consulting
Public classes and individual training.
Guide to using Crystal in VB

http://www.kenhamady.com/

tek@kenhamady.com

 

[mmwchac]

Thanks Ken. This group of report writers rarely uses the page x of Y feature. Deadlines for reports often result in many "quick and dirty" reports that don't contain a lot of formatting. So, the majority of the reports here are

page 1 of 1+

They may not be pretty but the complexity of some of our reports is pretty amazing. However, we're not sure if that contributes to this little annoyance...

 

[kenhamady]

Do they have subreports?
Are the slow ones more complex?
When it does the page by page does it stop at each page and make you click again, or does it keep plodding through? Ken Hamady, On-site Custom Crystal Reports Training & Consulting
Public classes and individual training.
Guide to using Crystal in VB

http://www.kenhamady.com/

tek@kenhamady.com

 

[mmwchac]

Ken - there are no subreports. And unfortunately there are thousands of reports here and that's why we haven't been able to nail down the contributing factors such as complexity, formula evaluation or formatting issues. However, I think it's safe to say that at the present time, we don't see a pattern that points to any of those things. That's why we are mystified at this "sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't" behavior in Crystal.

When one of these reports goes page by page, it does it on it's own and we sit and watch. Down in the lower left of the screen flashes "generating page xxx" as it "plods" through...

 

[kenhamady]

You would only have to look at one of each (fast/slow) to identify the differences. Evaluation time has nothing to do with it. I can't think of any formatting that would do this. It might be a printer driver used by this report, or maybe the report process more data. Ken Hamady, On-site Custom Crystal Reports Training & Consulting
Public classes and individual training.
Guide to using Crystal in VB

http://www.kenhamady.com/

tek@kenhamady.com