Starting a letter on odd pages

rbuser

Hi,

I have a report that prints a letter to customers. It includes a
sub report so I cannot be sure how many pages the letter will
be. I am printing on a duplex printer and I have been able to
set duplex mode so it prints back and front. The problem is
when it prints the next letter it may be on the back of the
last letter.

Is there a way to make the detail band alway start on an
odd page?

Thanks,
Joseph Gordon

nicocizik

Hi Joseph,

My suggestion would be to create a group around every detail band then
follow the directions in the article below to get each group header to start
on an odd page.

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Article: Forcing Group Headers to Start on Odd Pages
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Question:

I have a report that is printing duplexed
and therefore I want to force the group headers to
start on odd pages.

Solution:

Using demo report #71 do the following:

1. Add a subreport to the GroupFooter band, just below the existing
controls.

2. Set the subreport's PrintBehavior property to pbSection - do not add any
controls to the subreport - leave it blank.

3. Add a Private field to the form: FPrintingSpacer: Boolean.

4. Add an event handler for the FormCreate event with the following code:

FPrintingSpacer := False;

5. Add an event handler for the ppOrderDetailGroupFooterBand1BeforePrint
event with the following code:

if not FPrintingSpacer then
begin
ppSubReport1.Visible := odd(ppOrderDetail.AbsolutePageNo) and
not ppOrderDetailGroupFooterBand1.Overflow;
FPrintingSpacer := ppSubReport1.Visible;
end
else
FPrintingSpacer := False;

6. Run the project and view report #71.

Note that when a group is to start, it will only start on an odd page.
Caveats: We are brute-forcing this solution by causing the even numbered
page to be taken up by the section style subreport. As a result, any page
headers or footers you have in the main report will not appear on the even
pages that are blank. To get around this, you could add identical
header/footers or custom header/footers with only page numbers, or some
such.


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rbuser

Hi,

I did exactly as you instructed and it WORKED just fine. Thanks!!
You people are great!

I am a little confused though. I tried before to put just a
sub report that was a pbsection on the detail band without putting
in the group and putting in the BeforePrint of the band code
to say only make it visible when we need a blank page between
bands. This put 3 blank pages between each record. Could
you explain if there is something special about putting it in the
group footer and why you need the FPrinterSpacer?

Thnks,
Joseph Gordon

nicocizik

Joseph,

Section style subreports are really meant to allow users to include numerous
completed reports in one report object. Simply placing a section style
subreport in a band with other objects tends to cause the report engine to
get lost and can sometimes cause unexpected page breaks. By keeping the
subreport in a band by itself, we are taking that situation away to ensure a
clean generation.

The reason we are using the FPrinterSpacer boolean variable is to globally
keep track of the visibility of the subreport and to make the code easier to
understand.

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