Q: Group information

Select the group header section. From the Properties pane, select the Group Sort Direction option, then choose Ascending (A-Z) or Descending (Z-A).

• Break before the start of the group.

  Select the group header section. From the Properties pane, set the Page Break Before option to True.

• Break after the group.

  Select the group footer section. From the Properties pane, set the Page Break After option to True.

Select the group header section. From the Properties pane, set the Keep Together option to True.

Select the group header section. From the Properties pane, set the Start on Page option to Even or Odd.

Select the group section. Choose Sections > Move Section Up / Down.

The corresponding group header or footer also moves.

Select the group section. Choose Sections > Delete Section, then click Yes.

Both the group header and footer are removed from the layout.

Select  Add Expression from the toolbar, or choose Toolbox > Add Expression. Click the group footer section. The Expression Editor opens. Drag the variable you want to use for the total from the Fields pane into the left-hand pane, then click OK.

Select the group header section. From the Properties pane, select the Group Expression option then click the finder button . The Expression Editor opens. Change the expression and click OK.

One way to reduce the number of information sets is to use the Character Count property. Select the group header section, then from the Properties pane, select the Character Count option.

Use this property to keep together records that contain similar initial characters. The Character Count value sets the number of characters to compare in each record. Records that have matching characters will be kept together on the same page, rather than split up.

For example, suppose the records contain the following:

Thompsons Cafe
Thompsons Restaurant
Thornaby Bakery

If the Character Count is set to 4, then Thompsons Cafe and Thompsons Restaurant would be kept together, as the first 4 characters are the same; but Thornaby bakery would split to the next group.

This can occur if you only want one footer to appear on a page but have several footers in a report. Report Designer adds the size of all footers together to work out the space needed. Since you only want one footer to display, you need to discount the space allocated to the other footers.

Select the group footer section. From the Properties pane, set the Allow Overlap property to True.