Sub Report

rbuser

And, while I'm asking so many questions ;-)

I want to send 2 reports to a routine that prints them both. The reports
are not related in any way other than that the user has selected them both.
I have a common routine that receives the two TppReport's and then lets the
user select the output method. Once they have selected (screen, printer,
whatever) I'd like to combine the two reports so they both come out
together.

TIA,
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-k-

nicocizik

Hi Kumar,

There are two ways to do this.

1. Combine the two reports into one report using Section Style subreports.
Section Style subreports were designed specifically to handle the printing
of multiple reports as one print job.

2. Check out Demo 123 located in the RBuilder\Demos\1. Reports\...
directory (dm0123.pas). This demo shows how to create two separate print
jobs at runtime and send them to the same printer as one.

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rbuser

Aloha Nico -

Thanks for your responses. Perhaps I've not been clear enough or I am
missing something, sorry. I don't have an issue with send multiple reports
to the printer. But what I want to do is send multiple reports to the
screen at once. I did try #2, but it didn't work for this purpose. #1
seems pretty complicated. Are you considering adding a feature in
the future that would make this process easy?

I will say that, so far, your product is so far superior to what we were
using that I am an overall happy camper! ;-)

Thanks,
-k-

nicocizik

Hi Kumar,

Sorry for the missunderstanding. Take a look at Demo 153 (spawned drilldown
reports). Using this method with the section style subreports method I
described earlier may be your best option for what you need.

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rbuser

Thanks for the response. I've got that working nicely now.

On a slightly different tangent, but related, any advice appreciated.

We are running c/s and in the past (with our previous report write )
what we did was to load several reports into One and then send this report
to the server. The server would have a report component that could load the
One file (even though it contained several reports in one) and then send to
a printer device. It is required that it all be sent to the printer as one
job as it is a really a Fax Printer device.

Using your demo 0123 I've got a handle on sending multiple reports as a
single print job (thanks!). However, I'm having a problem in getting my
arms around having to send multiple reports to the server and then having to
have the server join them for the printing. I'm sure I can do it, it just
seems like a lot of coding. I'm wondering if there is a way to join reports
into one and perhaps have the ppArchiveReader or ppReportExplorer read them
in and do the printing for me. Again, my only real issue is being able to
send a set of reports as One to the server and then being able to send it to
the (Fax)Printer.

Thanks for bearing with me.
-k-

nicocizik

Hi Kumar,

One of our customers developed an Archive Merge Utility that allows you to
merge multiple Report Archives into one. This may help you if you decide to
print the reports using Archive files. If you would like to take a look at
this utility, please send a quick email to support@digital-metaphors.com
requesting it and I'll send it right out to you.

On another note, have you taken a look at the Server Edition of
ReportBuilder? From your specifications below it sounds like the the
ReportBuilder Server could pretty much do everything for you without the
need for much coding at all. My suggestion would be to take a look at the
Server edition of ReportBuilder at
http://www.digital-metaphors.com/Subpages/Products/Server/overview.html and
see what you think.

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rbuser

Aloha Nico -

The Archive Merge Utility is EXACTLY what I needed. Thank you. I intend on
sending the developer a couple of bucks for his time as it is well
deserved!. My ONLY problem at this point is that I cannot seem to cause the
ppArchiveReader to print to the printer that I wish. Is there not a method
of setting the printer output WITHOUT having a user dialog?

I've checked the properties and tried:

RW_Archive.PrinterSetup.PrinterName := 'APF Fax Printer'; //no luck

and, before the print:

Printer.printerIndex := FaxPrinterNo;

but both times my output when to the report printer instead. When I turn on
the "ShowPrintDialog" and direct it to the Fax Printer, everything else
works like a charm. I'm sure I'm just missing something.

Thanks Again!
-k-

nicocizik

Hi Kumar,

Archives act a little different than normal reports in the way they are sent
to the printer. If you need to change the printer setup for an archive, you
need to make the changes inside the ArchiveReader.OnInitializePrinterSetup
event. This way the updated printer settings will be applied for every page
of the archive.

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