Using PAGE_NUMBER in a calculation on documents (reports)

gerber1

I have several documents, varying in number from 7 to 11 depending on circumstances, that I output to file and then chain together using PDFToolkit. I then import the combined document for further use. That all works fine. The report engine is not able to combine all of these reports into one.

I would like the page numbers in my final combined PDF to be contiguous across the documents, so it looks like one report to end users. Currently, each document starts page numbering at 1, so I have several Page 1's in the final report. I have added tracking of used pages to the Process that does all of this, so I know the offset that should be added to each document page number to achieve my goal. After each document, I store this number in LoggedInRegularUser.TotalPageCount (number type), such that PAGE_NUMBER+LoggedInRegularUser.TotalPageCount will be the page number I want on each page.

Now the issue: When I include LoggedInRegularUser.TotalPageCount in a tag, I get the correct cumulative page count as of the beginning of the current document. When I include simply PAGE_NUMBER, that works as usual. However, when I try PAGE_NUMBER + LoggedInRegularUser.TotalPageCount, I get only a blank on the document where this tag is placed.

Is there a way to apply a calculation to the PAGE_NUMBER or some other trick to get what I need here?

I am using 5.1a (1441)

If this won't work, I'll probably have to delve into using PDFToolkit to do all the page numbering...

Thanks much in advance!

Roy

kklosson

Based on my q&a with support on this subject, I don't believe you can user PageNumber in a calculation.

https://forum.awareim.com/d/5105>

gerber1

Thanks for your response. Yes, even applying functions like AS_STRING or AS_NUMBER to it to try to get a value that can be referenced in a calculation yields blank...

I resorted to setting up each document as a "section," using my existing tracking "variable" as a prefix and using the untouched PAGE_NUMBER after a "-", resulting in a sequence like 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 3-1, ... which is good enough for my purposes.

It is interesting that the expression builder/helper in the report editor supports creating this type of invalid/unsupported/dysfunctional use of PAGE_NUMBER and they even pass validation, but it does not work at run-time.

FOR SUPPORT: This is an enhancement suggestion. Either allow use of PAGE_NUMBER in expressions (which I doubt can easily be done...), or disallow the creation of expressions that include it, which will not work at run-time anyway. Though I did not test it, I suspect this issue applies to the other internal report variables as well.

Thanks again.