Spreadsheet output from reports posting to multiple cells instead of one

Question

Hi all, using Report Builder 10.1.2.2.0
ORACLE Server Release 10.1.0.5.0.
I have a report that creates its output as an excel file using desformat=spreadsheet. The problem I am having is with fields that contain a large amount of text with formatting characters in them. In particular, carriage returns. When this data is created in excel, it treats the carriage return as a new cell, so instead of putting all the data for that column into one cell, it creates a number of cells and merges them all together.
Is there anyway to get around this? I know excel can support line breaks within a cell, is it a limitation of oracle reports to be unable to duplicate this output?

Answer 1

For what it's worth, that's the way I read that line in the User Guide as well. What it actually appears to mean, though is 'Rules applied to multiple cells apply independently to each of the cells."
Here's a workaround for your three adjacent columns. Long, but fairly simple steps.
Add a second table to the sheet (Table 2).
Resize the second table to one column wide and as many rows as you want to apply the conditional format to.
Set the width of the column to the same width as the three columns you want to highlight, and the row height(s) to match the rows.
Format to table to have NO Header or Footer row or column.
Use the Wrap Inspector to uncheck "Object causes wrap"
In the first top cell of Table 2, enter an = sign, then Click on Table 1 in the sidebar, Click on the first cell that will hold YES or NO.
Fill the formula down the rest of Table 2.
With all cells in Table 2 selected, use the Cell Format inspector to set the 'text contains yes' rule and the conditional fill colour for these cells.
Test the conditional formating by introducing values into Table 1.
Click on Table 1 in the sidebar, then use the Table inspector to set Cell Fill to 'none'.
Click on Table 2 in the sidebar, then drag that table onto table 1 aligning it to cover the cells in which the conditional formating is to appear.
When positioned (and still selected), go to the Arrange menu and Send Backward to move Table 2 behind the (transparent) cells in Table 1.
With Table 2 still selected, click on the Cell Borders color well and set the Opacity of the borders to 0%.
Click the Text inspector and set the Text colour Opacity for Table 2 to 0%.
Regards,
Barry