The Group and Sections Options screen allow you manage which sections are available and section properties in your report. See below for details on how to add and remove footer and header sections, and how to set section properties.

Opening the group and sections options screen

Select the Group and Section Options button from the Tools Panel.

Select the Section Options tab

Adding and removing header and footer sections.

To include report header and footer sections, or page header or footer sections check the appropriate check box.

To remove report header and footer sections, or page header or footer sections uncheck the appropriate check box.

Setting section properties

To set the properties for a section, select the section in the Sections list, then select or enter the required properties.

The different section properties are described in the table below.

Property

Description

Visible

Visible property determines whether the section is to be printed or not.

Print at Bottom of Page

Sets or returns whether or not the GroupFooter or ReportFooter should be printed at the bottom of the page.

Note: If Print At Bottom of Page is checked and the report has a Page Footer, the Group Footer or Report Footer will be printed above the Page Footer.

Note: Setting more than one section to print at the bottom will cause the subsequent footer sections to be printed on separate pages.

New Page Before

The New Page Before property determines whether DataPA should insert a page-break before the section.

Note: This property does not apply to the Page Header and Page Footer sections.

Underlay Following Sections

The Underlay Following Sections property determines whether the section should print underneath the following section. The following section will start printing starting from the top coordinate of the under-laid section instead of the bottom coordinate.

Note: This property applies to Group Header sections only.

Keep Together

The Keep Together property determines whether a section should print in its entirety on the same page. When you check this property, the section will print on the same page without any page breaks. When you uncheck this setting, you allow the section to be split across two or more pages.

Note: This property applies to Group Header, Group Footer and Detail sections only.

New Page After

The New Page After property determines whether DataPA should insert a page-break after the section.

Note: This property does not apply to the Page Header and Page Footer sections.

Can Grow

The Can Grow property determines whether the section height will be expanded if any of its contained controls grow beyond its area. If this property is set to False, the section contents will be clipped to the height of the section.

Can Shrink

Can Shrink determines whether the section height will be adjusted to fit its contents. When this property is unchecked the section will not shrink beyond the minimum value defined by the height of the section in the designer.

Note: This property does not apply to Page Header and Page Footer sections.

Section Colour

Sets the background colour of a section.

Number of Columns

The Column Count property determines the number of newspaper columns in the report. This property can be used to print labels or phone book style listings. The width of each column equals the print width of the report divided by the number of columns.

The Column Count property applies to Detail sections only.

Column Direction

The Column Direction property determines how DataPA should print the detail section in a multi-column report. To print each section down each column followed by the next column to its right, select Down Across.  To print sections right across the first row followed by the second row and so on, select Across Down.

The Column Direction property applies to Detail sections only.