Crystal Report Layout Printing Different

Question

I have been working in SSRS most of my reporting career and have only had some experience in Crystal 9 and haven't been able to find the resources to assist me.

I have to rework a report for a customer and cannot start from scratch. The report is setup with a page header, multiple suppressed group headers, a details section, multiple group footers and a page footer.

Issue 1) The line items printing in the Details section are printing at the top of the page; I have to expand the details section out pretty far just to get it to move gradually down the page, why is that happening? -RESOLVED BELOW

Issue 2) My page footer is not appearing on the page at all, nor does it runoff onto a second page. Why is this?

I guess I don't understand the sections well enough to figure this out. I have attached the crystal design view of the report and how the report is printing. Thank you!

Crystal Layout

Print Layout

Answer 1

In Section Expert, uncheck Underlay Following Sections and that should allow the sections to print in the order you desire. You will want to remove all that white space you inserted into the details sections as well.

When this property is enabled, it allows sections to print over one another though. Its useful for things like background images that need to span multiple sections, but is otherwise not used often in Crystal Reports.

As for your Page Footer not printing. First thing to do is to check in Section Expert if there may be a formula entered into the Suppress property of this section. When there is a formula used to suppress a section, it still shows in the designer like it would if it is not suppressed. If there is a formula there, remove it or comment it out and the footer should print as expected. If you do need a formula to suppress it under some conditions, update the question or leave a comment on this answer with the current formula you are using and an explanation of the logic and I can help you with the formula.

If there is no formula in the suppress property, then you should check the size of your page in Page Setup (on the menu toolbar click File > Page Setup).