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How do you make a field in a report automatically expand or retract in size depending on how much data there is to view?

You are a programmer? [Solved] Resizing Form Edit Boxes to their size content

Ouch! Does this work for reports as well as forms though? (Sorry for butting in, but I'd like to expand a report detail to multiple lines if a field is too long for the width.)

No - the code used in the other thread is NOT going to work for Base Reports.

The funcitonality is planned for the Sun Report Builder (yeah it's an extension - sort of) but when I don't know.

You can see what is planned at this page:
SUN Report Builder - PlannedFeatures

Many of the features listed on that page will be in the 3.1 release of OO.o but I have not heard anything about Flowing Text as part of that.

Edit: I posted a question to the developers mailing list regarding the when question - when something comes back from the developer I'll pass it along here

Thanks Drew. I await this one with interest as I've a lot of free-form text fields.

Any update on this? I'm running the latest versions, and I need to be able to have a field do what my ACCESS 2000 calls "can grow" which automatically allows a field to expand to the size it needs to be.

Jean

Feature not implemented into 3.1 and not in development version for 3.2, until now.

I've recently loaded 3.2 and noted that it is not apparent, it would be a great feature when enabled. (PS, the words used to describe are "Flowing Text")

For those who need to have an approach to putting the "long text" data to a report, I was able to do that using the "Mail Merge" function. This gives one access to the tables and queries and by ignoring the addressing steps, going to the document itself, inserting the appropriate mail merge fields as if setting up a report with spacing, font characteristics, etc, then following each occuraance of the field group with a "next record" and pasting the entire group as many or more times as the occurances of the targeted records, and then completing the merge" a passable report is produced. Surely not a "production" process but it does alow one to get the flowed text in a form usable by non-tech folks, the ability to have dynamic field sizing like "can grow" (and hopefully "can shrink") in MSO will be a great addition but this may be a route for minor needs in the meantime.

The power of the Form functions is really enhanced by the ability to display and report variable passages.

Has this feature been implemented yet in report builder? If not is there a work around?

Do not use the report builder. Use Calc or the tabular old-style report or may be even mail merge fields.

I've tried mail merge and succeeded in corrupting the data base. In addition to resize I need to use two data sources in one mail merge document. The old-style report may work.

Perhaps there is another way to accomplish your task, or, put another way, if it were me, I would do it as described below.

Since, you do not want to have another instance of a corrupt Base file ( *.odb ) as I indicated to you in the recent past, use HSQL, preferably Version 2.3.4 ( as of the date I am writing this ), as an external database . . . and . . .

1. Use a tool, such as, SqlTool.jar to compose / write your report as an HTML file ( or, alternatively, simple raw text ) . This will allow you to include 'raw' HTML code, and, you can 'format' the output as you wish.
2. Use SqlWorkbench/J to create your report.
3. Any other external database reporting tool of your choice ( that is outside of OpenOffice / LibreOffice ).

Sliderule

Hi!
You have several options to work, but none of them is easy. I worked about reports, specially no ORB reports.
I attach several examples I developed.
I know my code is a mess (I am not a programmer, I am only a copy-and-paste user),so it should be modify in order to do things in an easy way, but the important is that things are possible:

A. Old fashioned system:

1. You can use a cell which is in the main table in the report, in the design mode, use the ‘autoheight’ function.
In this case you won’t be able to use the field for other different thing than text you have in the text field.
You will be able to justify the text (left and right) using macros if you are using the legacy report builder (OpenOffice).
2. You can, in the design mode, erase all your main table, then, you can add a new subform ( a report has that structure).
In that subreport you can write whatever you want, and you can put between two words, a field based on the subform data source.
Here is the place in which you can use the Villeroy’s suggestion (as I used)
You won’t be able to justify the text if you have more than one line of text.
3. You can reduce the length of a textfield to no see it, copy its text, and past it in the writer document which is in every report in base.
In this case you are able to justify perfectly your block of text.
4. You can combine these techniques with other, getting a combination of text, table, images, charts and other tables, with other origins ( a subreport )

B) With Oracle Report Builder

1) You have to take into consideration that ORB works with three tables in the simplest report, and the main table is the number two.
You can modify a row of that table to ‘autoheight’, and it works fine, but it is a bit difficult to know the number of the row to modify.
The ‘autoheight’ function only is possible with macros (I think).
You are able to justify the text without using macros in LibreOffice.

The example is too large, so you can find it in:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9p04 ... VJuQ1FmeUE

I have to say that last three reports don't work properly with LibreOffice. They have a chart which is visible with Openoffice, but not with LibreOffice, due to the way in which the chart get data from its source data. Nothing important.
Good luck!