Question

Keep Together option not working for Detail

Asked by: obrienj

I have a crystal report detail section which I need to keep together.  For some reason it is breaking the rules.
I know I have used this functionality before with success, but it seems that something is causing it to not work in this situation.

The detail in question is a row of a table.   The lines of the table are in the detail and about 12 columns.
The second column is a Text field and the only field that can possibly expand into a second row.

The issue:
when the Text field in the second column expands into a second row the detail will be allowed to go across two pages.
Obviously this only happens if there is enough room on the first page for the detail when it is only one line.  It seems that it makes the keep together judgement based on the size of the detail in the design rather than the data that goes into it when run.

Is there any way around this??

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Asked On
2009-08-11 at 09:28:24ID24643702
Tags

Crystal Reports

,

Keep Together

,

Detail

Topic

Crystal Reports Software

Participating Experts
5
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: IdoMilletPosted on 2009-08-11 at 09:51:38ID: 25070998

Did yo use Keep together property in the Section formatting options?  Are you saying that you end up with a single detail section split across two pages?
What version of Crystal?  

 

by: watsonjPosted on 2009-08-11 at 12:09:07ID: 25072274

You could also use a keep together on the item itself by going into it's properties, if you have already set it in the section expert.

 

by: mlmccPosted on 2009-08-11 at 18:13:09ID: 25074991

Agree. You can set the KEEP TOGETHER on the field itself.

Right click the FIELD
Click FORMAT FIELD
CLick the COMMON TAB
Set the KEEP TOGETHER

mlmcc

 

by: obrienjPosted on 2009-08-12 at 01:13:55ID: 25076590

Yes, I have used the Keep Together on the Section detail.

I have also tried putting the Keep Together on the Field itself.  What happens if I do that is that all the "Fields" move to the next page, but the lines start on the previous page.  
See attached image.  It shows the lines for the detail start on the first page.  It's then as if it figures out the description column needs two lines and it must keep it together (because I have set it at the field level) and it moves all the fields onto the next page.

Either way, it seems no matter what I do it prints the lines on the first page.

 

by: PCIIainPosted on 2009-08-12 at 01:47:42ID: 25076752

I assume the lines are drawn in from the group header to the group footer.

This is going to be a pain, but you could try it.

Instead of drawing one line from group header to group footer, draw a line within the group header, one within the group footer and one more within the details section, this means the lines don't 'join up'.
I'd put a second details section below the first, draw the line down into it and then suppress it. This should cause the line to extend when the first details section is grown larger.

The pain bit is getting the three lines to match up in all the sections, particularly if you then resize the sections.

 

by: obrienjPosted on 2009-08-12 at 01:52:35ID: 25076786

Unfortunately we have already been through that and done exactly what you say above.  
This stopped the lines appearing almost every time.


Now it ONLY happens under certain circumstances:
1) Enough space at the end for one more detail as designed, in this case one full row.
2) The detail gets expanded due to the text field growing into two rows.




 

by: James0628Posted on 2009-08-12 at 20:03:19ID: 25085185

Do you have just one detail section, or do you have Details a, Details b, etc.?  If you have more than one detail section, do you have "Keep Together" checked for the overall "Details" section, or just the subsections (Details a, Details b, etc.)?

 You could try adding a group on one of your detail fields, so you get a separate group for each detail record, suppress the new group header and footer, and then go into the group options (group options, not section expert) and check the "Keep Group Together" option for the new group.

 If you don't have a single field that will give you a separate group for each detail record, maybe you can use a formula to construct one by combining several fields, and then group on that formula.

 James

 

by: obrienjPosted on 2009-08-13 at 02:29:58ID: 25086539

OKay, I seemed to have found a solution, but I have no idea how.

Basically, while messing about and trying different things I clicked OFF the Free-Form Placement option.  I noticed that this moved everything up slightly and put in place a horizontal guideline.

When I ran the document again it worked fine.  Even when I clicked Free-Form Placement option back on (this did not change back the above movement) it still seems to work.

I even tried making the changes (that I could visibly see), that changing the option made, myself but it made no difference.

So, I have no idea how it fixed it, but seemingly it has.  thanks for all the help, and I will divide the points between all equally since no solution was found really.
Thanks,
J

 

by: obrienjPosted on 2009-08-13 at 02:31:17ID: 31614299

Found the solution myself while trying to fix it.

 

by: James0628Posted on 2009-08-13 at 18:36:12ID: 25094659

Thanks for letting us know how you solved it.  I don't think I ever would have thought of that.

 For the record, you could have accepted your own post as the solution.

 James

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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