How do you get a line with MULTIPLE fields to WRAP ?

Question

How do you get a line with MULTIPLE fields to WRAP ?
Good afternoon everyone...
THE PROBLEM: Why doesn’t a line with multiple fields WRAP?
HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE/WHAT I”D LIKE TO SEE
If I have 2 fields on a line (this is now a hypothetical example and nothing to do with my actual report)….let’s call them field A and field B. And if field A has values of all ‘X’ and field B has values of all ‘Y’…then….the normal case would be (ignore dots – only for spacing):
A……………………… B
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
But what if A is too long? I would want to see B wrap onto the next line like this:
A……………………………………………………B
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX YYYYYY
YYYYYYYYYYYYY
And similarly….if B is extra long, can the line print as:
A………………………. B
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I don’t want the case where B is long and I get:
A………………… …B…
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
………………………..YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I can see how you can wrap an individual field like that…but how can you WRAP a line of[b] fields within the frame so it wraps to the BEGINNING of the frame on next line?
My SPECIFIC CASE
I have a report that I have stripped down to a simple structure for the purposes of this explanation.
My DATA MODEL has the main QUERY (for plant family and species data). The columns of the query are divided into 2 groups. The 1st GROUP contains the family data. Below that is the rest of the species data in a 2nd GROUP.
Linking from the 2nd species group (above) is a new QUERY to extract REGION data based on the common key field. Under this 2nd query is another group with all the REGION columns.
The LAYOUT MODEL has a group frame (the main , base one)
On top of this is a repeating frame based on the 1st group (family data).
On top of this is another repeating frame for the 2nd group (species data).
On top of this is 2 Frames on the same line line. The 1st frame contains columns from the species group .
The 2nd frame on this line is a repeating frame. The PRINT DIRECTION for this frame is ACROSS/DOWN. It repeats details of the REGION where the species is found. These columns come from this group come from the REGION QUERY and GROUP.
All fields on the report line have variable horizontal elasticity.
The problem is that when there is too much data on the line, it does NOT WRAP to the 2nd line.. It TRUNCATES.
Can the line be made to WRAP????..
In my current report, 1 of 2 things is happening:
1) All fields print on the line until it hits the page boundary and then it just stops. Truncated!
2) All fields print on the current line, then Oracle Reports throws a new page to print the REMAINDER of the long, input line
But I would like a LONG line to continue printing onto the following line of the same page.
I have tried all combinations of the elasticity fields and the ‘ADVANCED LAYOUT’ properties.
I have been focussing my attention with this problem on the frames .
We are using REPORT BUILDER V 6.0.8.26.0
Thankyou to anyone who may offer assistance.
Tony Calabrese.

Answer 1

Steve,
you gain 1 thing, but you lose something else!
This thing is SO frustrating!
Hey Steve! Good afternoon.
I've done as you suggested....I have a long text boilerplate item - the only 1 on the line...and it has all the column in it.
So it looks like:
&col1 &col2 &col3 &col4 &col5 etc etc etc
And the line expands nicely to each field's requirements.
And when it gets to the right page boundary...it WRAPS to the next line! Beautiful!!!
The only thing is that...when I had individual fields across the line I was able to create format triggers for those fields. And in doing so I was able to reduce the font and change the justification. I had to do that because some of the fields had to appear superscripted.
So I wanted something like (ignore the dots):
...................................ppppp
AAAA BBBB CCCCC DDDD EEEE FFFFFF
So the field of 'ppppp' appeared slightly higher on the line than the other fields...
I can't see how I can do this with a single TEXT field containing all the &COL values.
Have you ever come across anything like this?
Thankyou again,
Tony Calabrese 12/4/2007