Form Design - Categories breaking up records

[BlueWolverine]

Hello,
MS ACCESS 2003 on XP Pro.

I have a question regarding either form or report design, I am not sure
which is more appropriate for what I am doing.

(I wrote a really complicated macro in Excel to do this but I think Access
can do it with less code and much faster)


Here it goes:

I need a printable to PDF document that looks like this.
--------------------------------
| Heading for PAge1 only|
--------------------------------

--------------------------------
| Category 1 |
--------------------------------
Record1
Record2
Record3
Record4
RecordN

--------------------------------
|Category 2 |
--------------------------------
Record N+1
Record N+2
Record N+M

Etc.

The idea is that a Category has a group of records that go with it.

I don't really want to change the format of the document, because the
easiest way I thought to do it is.


Record1|Cat|ID1|ID2|ID3|ID4
Record2|Cat|ID1|ID2|ID3|ID4
RecordX|Cat|ID1|ID2|ID3|ID4

etc where the Category repeats, but this changes the format, which is
already in use, and I am just trying to streamline.

Any ideas? By all means request clarifications.

Thank you so much.

 

[Klatuu]

Need more detail.
What do you mean by RecordN
Then RecordN+1, etc?
What do you mean by category.
There is not nearly enough info in your post to give you a usable answer.

 

[BlueWolverine]

Thank you that's the sort of thing I figured I was forgetting but was unable
to come up with. (Stupid 3OT)

So in each category there will be some unknown number of records. The
number is subject to all sorts of change, is not uniform between categories
and will most likely expand frequently.

So after the last record in the first category, I want the Second Category
Heading to come up, and then display the records for that category. Then I
want The third category heading to come up, and then display those records.
Etc Etc until all the records are shown in their appropriate category.

Does that help at all?

 

[Klatuu]

That is very easy in a report. Use the report Sorting and Grouping option
and group on your category field.

Your heading for Page 1 only would be the category header.
You can use a Group Header to present your group header information and the
Detail section of the report will show the records within the group.

It would be just about impossible to do this on a form.

 

[BlueWolverine]

Thank you!

I haven't made many Reports so I regularly overlook their capabilities.

I will give this a go. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Beetle]

(Stupid 3OT)

True, but what a great game!

 

[BlueWolverine]

It was a great game, but as a Die hard wings fan, i gotta say that sucked.
Anyway, We don't need to debate Penguins Wings here, this is definitely the
wrong place.

Thanks to for the advice, and the understanding of mild sleep deprivation.