Generating Reports › Headings and Footings › Defining Report and Page Headings and Footings › Complex Page Headings

Complex Page Headings

You can define complex page headings on the Report Heading fill‑in. This screen lets you closely control the text and format of the heading. RDF handles the entire page heading as a single entity. Therefore, you can define multi‑line headings on this screen.

As with defining details for the report, a field is provided for the heading text. You can specify it as a literal, a variable, a function, or an arithmetic expression.

The following definition provides an example of a multi‑line page heading composed of a function, two literals, a line break, and a working data variable. The components of the heading are entered vertically on the fill‑in, but appear horizontally across the top of each page of the report. Specifications in the TAB field on the screen control the actual spacing on the printed page, horizontal and vertical.

 =>
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
 IDEAL   : RPT HEADING/FOOTING   RPT CUSTRPT  (001) TEST           SYS: DOC  DISP 
                                                                                
          Field Name, Literal, Function,                   Column               
 Command  or Arithmetic Expression                         Wid Tab Edit Pattern 
 ‑‑‑‑‑‑   ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑ ‑‑  ‑‑‑ ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
 ======   ==================== T O P ===================== ==  === =============
 000300   $DATE('MM/DD/YY')                                08  001 _____________
 000400   'Customer List'                                  __  +02 _____________
 000500   ________________________________________________ __  L01 _____________
 000600   'Reporting States:'                              __  011 _____________
 000700   STNAMES                                          25  +02 _____________
 ======   ===================== B O T T O M ============== ==  === =============

Notice the use of the TAB field to skip lines (L01), to position the data in absolute terms (11), and in relative terms (02). The multi‑line heading defined in this example appears as the following:

02/28/95  Customer List
          Reporting States:  CA, IL, MD, NY, OH and TX

Notice that the working data variable STNAMES, specified in the definition above, provides a list of the states included in the report. Make sure that the placement of the page heading does not conflict with the placement of page numbers or page dates.