Memo Field on Report causes Second Page

[alex]

There seems to be a lot of good knowledge in these groups so hopefully
someone can help me out with some advice.

I basically have a very simple Acces Report (Access 2003) which is set
up like this:

Page Header
Detail
Page Footer

no report header or footer.

The last item in the detail section is a memo field. I have the "can
grow" and "can shrink" property of the field set to "yes." I also
have the "can grow" property of the detail section set to "yes."
There is about a half of page of room to print any data that might be
contained in the memo field.

The problem is: Regardless of how much data is in the memo field
(unless it's null) I always get a second page. If there wasn't really
enough data to go to a second page, then I get a blank second page
with just the header and footer.

I've tried all sorts of things, and I just can't seem to get a grip on
what is going on here. Why do I always get a second page when there
is nothing to print on it?

If the field is null, it does not create a second page. If I set the
"Can grow" property of the detail section to "no" - it stays on one
page, but then of course it does not spill over to a second page when
it really needs to.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I might look at to try and
keep the second page from appearing when there is nothing to print on
it?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Allen Browne]

Suggestions:

1. In report design view, make sure there is no unnecessary space below the
memo in the Detail section, i.e. reduce the height of the Detail section to
as small as practical.

2. Set the Force New Page property of the Detail section to No.
Also for any Report header/footers or Group header/footers.

3. Examine the contents of the memo to make sure it doesn't end with a bunch
of Enters that cause it to expand unnecessarily.

4. Temporarily disable any code/macros in the reports events, and make sure
there is no Page Break Control on the report.

5. Avoid exotic fonts for the memo's text box until you get it working.
Arial should be safe. (Some fonts can have bad metrics.)

6. If nothing else works, choose a different default printer. (Some printer
drivers with bad metrics cause bad report layouts.)

 

[alex]

Thanks. I've tried all of that, even printing to a different printer
(which I didn't think woudl make any difference since the report shows
the second blank page even on the screen).

I still get the second blank page no matter what. Force new Page is
no for everything.

Even if the memo field contains only a few lines, it creates the
second page. There isn't any "space" or CR's or anything like that in
the memo field to cause it.

Font is Ariel for the whole report.

No macros or code modules used, it's a straight forward very simple
report. I believe I built it using the wizard.

The only way it does not create a second page is if i set the "Can
Grow" property of the memo field to no. However, in that case, I
won't get the rest of the data for the records that actually need it.

It's really annoying... maybe it's some kind of weird access bug with
memo fields?

 

[Allen Browne]

Not sure what else to suggest.

There's no bug here IME, so there must be some factor at work causing the
page to not fit and spill over onto another.

 

[alex]

I think it's a bug. Outputting the report to RTF clearcly shows that
Access is putting in a page break for no readily apparent reason.
Very strange indeed.

I've been able to reporduce this by creating a blank report with just
a memo field - same behaviour.

There doesn't appear to be any way to fix it.

 

[Allen Browne]

Test this memo-only report with these settings:

a) The report has *only* a Detail section showing in design view (no report
header or footer, no page header or footer, no groups.)

b) Report's width is 5".

b) Detail section's height is 0.2" (just enough for the height of the text
box, and no more.)

c) Can Grow property of text box and Detail section is Yes.

d) Under Page Setup, the margins are 1" all round.