Expert: Scottgem - 11/3/2009

Question
Dear Scott,

I have set up a database containing information on the projects we conduct (title of project, start date, end date, construction cost, value of services, type of project (from T1 to T5), subtypes (from S1 to S23) and Activities (from A1 to A26)).
The database runs perfectly for Admin / Users, it can report mistake, make different searches based on terms in the title, or a complex search form.
Now, I am at the step of creating a report - and it gives me headaches!
In the "Detail" section of my report, I have expandable boxes because some projects have 1 activity and some have 10.
now the headaches:
1) When printing the report, somes activity boxes come out huge (that is: one line with the only activity associated to this project and then several blank lines), and some don't show all the activity information.
For this activity field, I have inserted a text box with a simple routine event on print. and the text box is set to expandable. what is wrong?

2) I would like the body of my report to look like a table, i.e. with rows and columns clearly marked. When I "color" the text boxes in the body, it come sout ugly (all at different levels horizontally) If I insert lines in the report section, they stick out to small lines as there is no "expandable" option for the lines (or I haven't found it yet).

Well, there are other headaches apart from those, but still trying to work on them...
Hope you can help me on those ones!
Thanks a lot in advance

mathilde

(sorry if some of the language is not perfect, I am French and work with Access in Italian for my work, so translating is a mess!)

Answer
First, Do you have only one table? If you do your database is not normalized properly and that is a big part of your problem.

If projects can have multiple activities, then the activities should be listed in a separate table. Your report would then group on Project with the project info in the group header, then the activities would be in the detail band in a grid like format.

Hope this helps,
Scott<>
Microsoft Access MVP 2007
Author: Microsoft Office Access 2007 VBA