Force constant height of details section

[peter.c.bradley]

Hi folks,

I have an Access report that has an unbound text box in the details
section. The report also includes the standard headers and footers.
The details section is populated by a query executed during the
“Report_Open” event. Depending on the query, the details section can
have 1 or more records and each record is a text string of variable
length (the text box is set to grow).

I’m trying to create the effect of a constant size box around the
details section, regardless of the number of records (and height of
each record). I realize the detail section’s height will be different
on page 1 compared to all subsequent pages due to the report headers,
etc. I draw the left and right vertical lines using the line method.
This works fine. I draw the top line in the page header. This also
works fine. However, the bottom line is a problem.

If I place the bottom line in the page footer, it appears at the
bottom of the page (as expected), but now there is a gap in the
vertical lines between the end of the detail section (if there is not
enough records to fill the page) and the page footer.

If I place the bottom line in the report footer it creates a nice box,
but the box is of variable height depending on the number of records
(the report footer starts immediately after the last record). This is
not ideal for this particular report. I can force the report footer to
the bottom of the page, but this creates the same problem as with the
page footer: a gap in the vertical lines.

To summarize: I would like to force the details section to expand to
fit the entire page (approximately half a page on the first page and
the whole page on subsequent pages) so the vertical lines in the
details section also expand to close the gap between the end of the
records and the page footer.

Of course, they may be a better solution….

Any help or ideas would be very much appreciated.

Cheers,
Peter