How do I force two detail columns in a Crystal Report?

Question

I understand and have followed well the instructions to make report detail flow over two columns, but my problem is that Crystal continues insisting on only one column. That only has ten lines in it, and I assume Crystal starts the second column when the first one has reached the end of the page.

How do I force Crystal to move on to the second column when my ten lines have been output in the first column?

The reason for this is so that the detail lines only take the top of of the page and leave room for a chart on the bottom half of the page.

Answer 1

You cannot set the report to show 10 rows and then switch to the next column, but you can set the printing direction to "Across then Down".

Answer 2

I typically force data sets into tiny "bite size" report objects via a field typically called report_set. In the main report, query an object (table or stored proc) with a list of all the report set identifiers: these are numbers in the sort order you want to datasets to be displayed in the report. Then for each value, link an embedded subreport that contains the report_set value along with the actual data subset of the report to display.

The main report is just a list of all the report_set values on each detail line... but then each detail contains a small subreport object. With the database parameters in a stored proc, then you can do all sorts of fun conditional formatting at runtime, including forcing page breaks after specific subreport instances or leaving whitespace for other things like a chart.