Formatting with Multiple Columns
The default layout of a report is designed so that each detail record uses the entire width of the page and each row is printed below the one before it. Sections aren’t designed to only use a partial page width. However, if you want to print mailing labels or a newspaper style report, you need to use sections that are small enough so that they can be repeated across the page. Setting the Format With Multiple Columns option lets you do that.
When selecting this option, a Layout tab appears in the dialog box. This tab lets you set the column width and spacing so that your information is put onto mailing labels. You can also set whether the records go down the page first and then to the next column, or go across the page first before going down to the next row. Figure 6-8 shows the options on the Layout tab.
Figure 6-8. The Layout tab of the Section Editor.
The only problem with using the Layout tab is that it takes a little experimentation to get the formatting perfect. Precision is a necessity when printing labels and making a mailing list could take some work. You are much better off by using the Report Expert dialog box to create mailing labels. As Figure 6-9 shows, using the Report Expert lets you pick from a list of standard Avery numbers for the label format. Unless you are using a custom designed label, you can let Crystal Reports do all the work of formatting the label. This makes it easy to create mailing labels that print perfectly the first time!
Figure 6-9. The Mailing Labels Report Expert.
Once you create a report using the Mailing Label Report Expert, you cannot go back and pick a new type of Avery label template. Instead, you have to use the Section Expert to manually change the label size.
Group Headers with Multi-Columns Reports
Crystal Reports has an interesting way of printing group headers on multi-column reports. By default, it formats a group header so that it spans across the entire page. For example, if a multi-column report has three columns, the group header will span across all three columns. This is shown in figure 6-10.
Figure 6-10. Group header that spans both columns.
In this example, I formatted the group header to have a gray background so that it is easy to see that it spans across both columns.
You have the option to set the group header to stay within a single column. At the bottom of the Layout tab (see Figure 6-8), click on the Format Group With Multiple Column checkbox. When this is checked, it tells Crystal Reports to not let the group header span multiple columns, and only span a single column. This is shown in Figure 6-11.
Figure 6-11. Group header only spans one column.
You can see in this example that there are two group headers on the page. Each group header is the width of a single column and the next group header starts immediately following the last label in the previous group.
What makes this feature interesting is that it isn’t available if you created the report using the Mailing Label Report Expert. For some reason, when using the report expert, Crystal Reports doesn’t put Format Group With Multiple Column option on the layout tab. This is only available when creating a standard report and later changing it to multiple columns. When printing group headers on a mailing label report, the group header always spans across the entire page width.
