Conditional Printing

GertV

I have a document template Invoice that includes the address of the recipient. It's defined as:

<<Invoices.Address1>>
<<Invoices.Address2>>
<<Invoices.Address3>>
<<Invoices.Address4>>
<<Invoices.Address5>>

Sometimes the address line 2 is not filled so I'm trying to skip printing it.

I attached a condition to <<Invoices.Address2>> that reads:

Invoices.Address2<>'' and then put the correct element properties in. I also tried to use the conditions Invoices.Address2 IS DEFINED and LENGTH(Invoices.Address2)>0.

Further more I ticked the box Collapse height when element is not printed.

The problem is that whatever I try Invoices.Address2 appears as a blank line on my document.

Does anyone know if I'm doing something wrong?

kklosson

One thing to try is to set the height of each address element to 1 (I'm not sure if you can set to zero) and stack them on each other. Place them one pixel apart so address1 is at 5, address2 is at 6, etc.

RocketRod

I would set up some calculated attributes on your BO and set the rules there to create a PrintAddress1, PrintAddress2 etc. Much easier than mucking around with the report writer.

Cheers Rod

GertV

Thanks both for your tips. I will give those a try.

What confuses me is the fact that conditional printing does not seem to work. Support can you confirm this?

aware_support

It should work - you need to find out what is wrong with your conditions...

hpl123

Support, there is definitely a problem with the "Collapse height when element is not printed" functionality in the report designer. I have it working for 1 attribute but cannot for the life of me replicate it (using the same kinds of conditions etc.. and the conditions are correct).

Could you please investigate this, It would help A LOT to have this function working so we don´t have to fiddle around with this and that workarounds. Thanks

hpl123

Sample BS sent.

hpl123

Anyone want to chip in on a paid support ticket (or how many it takes) for this? I can ask Awaresoft for a quote?

aware_support

We have investigated this. It happens because in the report the three elements slightly overlap. You have to make sure that they don't. Just move the first element a couple of pixels up and the third one - a couple of pixels down and it will be fine. If elements overlap the height is not reclaimed.

hpl123

Thanks for looking into this and again being open to prioritized tickets. I have paid the invoice.

Regarding this fix, this is not the solution to this problem though. See new example BS sent.

aware_support

Yes, it is. The system cannot collapse the height if there are elements to the right of the collapsed element. There is no way the system can know that it is supposed to collapse only the first column as in your example, while leaving the second column intact. So if there are any elements to the right/left of the element to be collapsed the space is NOT reclaimed.

hpl123

Aha ok, yeah sounds logical (but unpractical). Thanks for the clarification and will try to work around these limitations.