Re: Crystal Reports Features [missing] in Access

From: SA (~fake.address_at_nspm.com)
Date: 02/24/04 

Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 10:23:18 -0500

GR:

Items one and two are relatively easy, item 3 is not available.

1.) Multiple sections; the easiest way to accomplish that is to create
sections as subreports and to simply turn their Visible property on or off.
2.) Conditional printing of sections: Again pretty easy using the
.PrintSection, MoveLayout and NextRecord properties in combination. You can
test for conditions and then set those properties in the Sections On Print
event.

HTH 

-- 
Steve Arbaugh
ACG Soft
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/attac-cg
"grrr223" <grrr223.1249qv@nospam.MSAccessForum.com> wrote in message
news:grrr223.1249qv@nospam.MSAccessForum.com...
>
> Our ERP software uses Crystal Reports to report off of a SQL Server
> database. We also use Excel spreadsheets WAY too much.
>
> We are now moving all of our Excel spreadsheets into Access Data
> Projects, and Access has it's own report writing capapbilities which I
> see are incredibly powerful due in large part to VB automation and the
> benefits of using one application to both enter data and report on it.
>
> This brings me to the question of:
>
> IF I AM GOING TO BE USING ACCESS TO ENTER DATA ANYWAY, IS THERE ANY
> PRESSING REASON I WOULD CONTINUE TO USE CRYSTAL REPORTS?
>
> While converting several reports from Crystal to Access, I have run
> into a few features that I found very useful in Crystal that are
> "missing" in Access. By "missing" I simply mean that I haven't figured
> out simple ways of replicating them [yet].
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions on replicating the following Crystal
> Reports features in and Access 2003 Data Project? I am very open to
> using VB, I just haven't found a very good starting place on these
> things yet.
>
> 1. *Multiple Sections* Crystal lets a user create multiple versions of
> each section which can then each be turned on or off independtly using
> conditional formatting. For example, on a customer statement, I might
> want different fields to display for a payment than an invoice.
> 2. *Conditional Visibility [of Sections]* Similar to the above feature,
> Crystal allows one to VERY easily turn on or off the visibility of a
> section based on any conditional expression. It allows the user to
> select which of the multiple sections to display as well as a method of
> filtering which records get displayed. I have certain formulas on my
> reports that prevent me from filtering the query, I need to simply
> filter the visibility of the records in the report.
> 3. *Specified Grouping* I want a little more control over my grouping
> than simply sorting by equal periods or the first 3 letters of a field.
> Crystal offers the ability to specify a group based on any expression,
> and even give it a name. For example, I want to create two groups on my
> report: Previous Activity and Current Activity. Since the previous
> activity can occur more than a month or even a year ago, I cannot group
> on either of those things. I simply want to specify Group "Previous
> Activity" as those records with dates before the statement's start
> date, and "Current Activity" for records with dates after the start
> date.
>
> Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I look forward to overcoming
> these minor hurdles with the help of those Access experts out there.
>
> Thank you,
> Mike
>
>
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