ACC: How to Print a Constant Number of Lines Per Group

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This article assumes that you are familiar with Visual Basic for Applications and with creating Microsoft Access applications using the programming tools provided with Microsoft Access. For more information about Visual Basic for Applications, please refer to your version of the "Building Applications with Microsoft Access" manual.

NOTE: Visual Basic for Applications is called Access Basic in earlier versions. For more information about Access Basic, please refer to the "Introduction to Programming" manual in Microsoft Access version 1.x or the "Building Applications" manual in version 2.0.

The steps below demonstrate how to create a report in the sample database Northwind.mdb (or NWIND.MDB in Microsoft Access 2.0 or earlier) with a constant number of lines per data group. You can use this method in a main report or subreport:

1. Start Microsoft Access and open the sample database Northwind.mdb.
2. Create a new report based on the Products table.
3. Group the data by the CategoryID field. Set the GroupHeader property to Yes.
   
   NOTE: In Microsoft Access 2.0 or earlier, there is a space in Category ID.
4. Add a text box control with the following properties to the CategoryID header section:

   Name: TotGrp
   ControlSource: =Count(*) 'Returns the number of records per group.

5. Set the CategoryID header section's ForceNewPage property to Before Section.
6. Add a text box control bound to the ProductName field with the following properties to the report's detail section:

   Name: ProductName
   ControlSource: [ProductName]

   NOTE: In Microsoft Access 2.0 or earlier, there is a space in Product Name.
7. Create a line control in the detail section that extends horizontally across the section. Set the line control's Name property to LineControl.
8. Create a new module and type the following lines in the Declarations section:

         Option Compare Database 'Use database order for string comparisons.
         Option Explicit
         Global TotCount As Integer
   
         ' Call the SetCount() function from the group header section's
         ' OnPrint property using the syntax: =SetCount(Report)
   
         Function SetCount (R As Report)
            TotCount = 0
            R![ProductName].Visible = True
         End Function
   
         ' Call the PrintLines() function from the detail section's OnPrint
         ' property using the syntax: =PrintLines(Report,[TotGrp]).
   
         Function PrintLines (R As Report, TotGrp)
            TotCount = TotCount + 1
            If TotCount = TotGrp Then
                 R.NextRecord = False
            ElseIf TotCount > TotGrp And TotCount < 15 Then
                 R.NextRecord = False
                 R![ProductName].Visible = False
            End If
         End Function
   					

This method repeats the last detail line for a data group until the total number of constant lines has been created. In this example, the last detail line is repeated until 15 detail lines have been printed for each group. The ProductName control is hidden in order to not repeat the last value, which creates a constant grid of 15 lines.