Crystal Reports for Rational Application Developer Designer Guide

Creating multiple-column reports

Instead of having the data in the Body section of your report print straight down the page, you can set up multiple columns and have the data flow from column to column.

To create a multiple-column report

  1. Open the report you want to format with multiple columns.
  2. Click anywhere within the Body area to select it.
  3. In the "Properties" view, set Multiple Columns to True.
    A collection of multi-column properties is added to the "Properties" view.
  4. Set the Column Width you want your column to be.
    Keep in mind the width of your paper when deciding your column width. For example, if you have three fields in your Body section, and they take up four inches of space, limit the width of the column to under four and a half inches so that all the field information can be seen.
  5. Choose a Flow Direction for your data.
  6. Set the Horizontal and Vertical gaps you want to maintain between each record in your column.
  7. If the report you're formatting contains grouping, set Multi-Column Groups to True.
When you preview the report, you will see that the data appears in columns. If your report has field headers, they appear only for the first column. To have field headers for the second column, insert a text object in the Crystal Reports editor.