Printout looks bad, empty vertical spacing between records in report

[rawdstorage]

I have made a report consisting of 3 main bound textboxes, A, B and C.
I have grouped A and B and put them inside their own group sections
(group headers), C is left in the details' section.

The look of the report is very much a tightly populated list in 3
columns, with quite a lot of record rows per page.

When printing to PDF or paper or when previewing the printout I get a
vertical spacing that occupies what would have been around 3-4 rows
from one of the most populated columns.

Why is this and how can I fix it?

 

[Clifford Bass]

Hi,

Is this happening at a group break? Did you make the group footers
invisible or change their heights to 0"?

If that is not the issue, I am having trouble picturing what is going
on, so post an example of what it looks like.

Clifford Bass

 

[rawdstorage]

Naturally, I forgot to mention the vertical spacing seemed to be in
the detail section.

Thank you for taking interest in my problem and your suggestions, I
had a second look.

I now know that for the specific header A, there are no values for the
second record row for B, which was why it looked so odd. It looked
like all the values for the first row in A, B and C were OK in the
first row, only to get a strange space before continuing. The strange-
looking space is however there for a reason. Since B has no value in
the second row, C has no value there either (C depends on B which
depends on A).

Access does a good job at hiding what would have been the second B-
value, like it shows that value in the other cases where A has a value
in the 2nd B-row (hm, is this really making any sense?). I think I
going to simplify. A = Company subsidiary, B = department, C = staff.

In one of the subsidiaries there is a department missing (the second
department in my departments' table), but it is only missing in that
subsidiary, because all the other subsidiaries have that department.
Because of this there is no department data (B) nor any staff data (C)
to be printed for that specific subsidiary (A). However, Access still
allocates space for that department and its staff in the _printed_
report as well as in the print preview. Despite this, Access doesn't
show any data in that allocated space (since there is none).
Nevertheless when viewing the report on screen, before entering print
preview, everything looks OK - no space. Very strange.

I would be very grateful for any ideas you may have. =)

 

[Clifford Bass]

Hi,

Is the data not there due to an outer join in your report's record
source query? Not sure if it will work, but it would be my first thing to
try: Set the detail section's Can Shrink property to Yes and the department
and staff fields' Can Shrink properties. If there are any other fields in
the same row as the department and staff fields, you will need to do likewise
with those fields.

Clifford Bass

 

[rawdstorage]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. =)

I am afraid the main table is populated with a query consisting of
inner joins only. Also, all (three of) the elements in the department
and staff headers are both shrinkable and magnifyable.

Thanks again!

 

[Clifford Bass]

Hi,

Quick basic question: Are the header sections also shrinkable?

Clifford Bass

 

[rawdstorage]

Hi again,

Thanks for not giving up on me. =)
Yes, all group headers are set to both magnifyable and shrinkable as
well as keep together. =)
Thanks again!

Best regards,
R

 

[Clifford Bass]

Hello,

You are welcome. One more idea: Is there any chance that the fields,
even though appearing blank, actually contain something? Even one space will
prevent the fields from shrinking. Try setting the field's control sources
to:

="[" & [FIELD_NAME] & "]"

See what you get. If you get [ ] then there is a space there. In
which case try:

=Trim([FIELD_NAME])

That should allow it to shrink. Also, if that is the case, you may
want to investigate as to why there is a space.

Clifford Bass