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Crystal Reports Basics: Repeating Headers on Printed Pages

This is based on the book, Crystal Reports: A Beginner’s Guide. For more detail and explanation, plus practice exercises, order the book here.

In Microsoft Excel, you can specify that headers appear on all pages. This allows someone to view the data without taping all the pages together or doing something else ridiculous. Crystal Reports provides the same functionality.

To repeat a group header on each page, just select "Repeat a Group Header" in the section properties.

For even more functionality, you can use third-party programs, such as the ones available here.

Now, keep in mind that repeating headers is a way of helping readers "connect the dots" between the pages of a printed report. So keep those headers meaningful. A person reading a report printout should be able to instantly see what a page is about. Think of that header as a book title; it needs to clearly describe the purpose of what's printed.

Without a header, the end-user has to actually read the report to figure out why s/he should read it. That's backwards. Give the reader the most efficient report experience possible, by using reading headers where appropriate and making those as clear and meaningful as possible.

Don't make the mistake of cramming that space with too much information. Remember, it needs to be clear. So choose your words carefully. Also, if you use a date don't make it all-numeric. Use the format ddmmmyyyy so that people from different regions interpret the date the same way. It's a pernicious problem in the United States to use an all-numeric date in the format mmddyy. People in most other countries read this as ddmmyy.

A somewhat related topic is the group header.

Drill down reports are another useful feature where a summary report can drill down to display lower level details.

If your drill down report is more than a page, you sometimes discover that the 2nd and subsequent pages do not display any headings.

When using drill down reports, check that you have ticked "Repeat Group Header on Each Page."

Group on a parameter.

Sometimes, we get a request for the same Crystal Report grouped in two or more different ways. One solution is to create different reports, but then any subsequent modifications have to be done to each rpt file.

Another way is to let the user select the group by using a parameter and some clever formulas. If our report has a parameter to select the group of City or Region, the formula for Group1 would be:

If {?Group}="Region" then {Customer.Region} else {Customer.City}

You could write similar formulas to control optional headings and the first column in your report.

Drilldown

Drill down reports are another useful feature where a summary report can drill down to display lower level details.

If your drill down report is more than a page, you sometimes discover that the 2nd and subsequent pages do not display any headings.

When using drill down reports, check that you have ticked "Repeat Group Header on Each Page."

So, what about repeating headers? That's also very useful. To repeat a group header on each page, just select "Repeat a Group Header" in the section properties.

For even more functionality, you can use third-party programs, such as the ones available here.

This article is copyrighted by Crystalkeen, Mindconnection, and Chelsea Technologies Ltd. It may be freely copied and distributed as long as the original copyright is displayed and no modifications are made to this material. Extracts are permitted. The names Crystal Reports and Seagate Info are trademarks owned by Business Objects.