Export to docx adding page breaks for table groups

Hi Neil,

We appreciate your patience. This issue has already been planned for development and will be fixed in next release of Aspose.Words for Reporting Services. The next release of Aspose.Words for Reporting Services will be available by the end of this month (September 2012).

We apologize for your inconvenience.

Hi Tahir,

I have just tested the new release with the Adventure Works example I provided - and I do not understand how this has been resolved. I am seeing the same issue in my original report and can see it in the adventure works example as well…

Attached are two documents from the adventure works database using the RDL I provided earlier.

The one has PageBreaks config enabled and the other does not. You will be able to see that it is still breaking correctly.

On the report I need to create I have a page break after 3 rows of data. This is not acceptable.

Is it possible for me to get in contact with the developer to discuss this with them ?

Can you please use the same adventure works RDL uploaded and generate the same copies - one with pagebreaks enabled and disabled and compare the documents so you can verify that there is still an issue.

Hi Heil,

I am working on fixing your issue.
Could you please check attached file - is it formatted correctly from your point of view?

Regards,
Vadim

Hi Vadim,

Thanks for your response.

The formatting looks more accurate. The problem however is that there are no headers being repeated in your example output. This issue I am experiencing specifically occurs when the “break on each page” configuration is enabled and when headers are set to repeat on each page.

Hi Neil,

>This issue I am experiencing specifically occurs when the “break on each page” configuration is enabled

Please look at one more attached file - it is generated with setting OnEachPage.
I tried to color rows background for better identifying repeating rows. Could you please mark with red color what is wrong and also make any changes in formatting (as it should be) and send it back to me?

Also one more thing, this is important.

It is not recommended placing of ‘AWConfiguration’ text-box inside header/footer and/or inside repeating items. Placing inside header/footer will not work at all (because they are processed AFTER main body of a report). And placing inside repeating items will lead to numerous extra processing. Instead you can use “Report level configuration (option 2 - for 2008)”, described in updated user doc. In short - one can now place config info into report custom properties, not in report body.

Please let me know whether it helped.

Regards,
Vadim

Thanks for the info on that configuration. Are you able to give me a link to the updated user doc - I have not seen it ?

Attached is the output you sent yesterday highlighted in green and also attached is the one you posted today with highlighting in red. This is just an illustration of breaking the data to the next page even when there is more space.

There breaking does not seem to be consistent and I think it is causing inconsistent breaks in my current report (The one I posted from the start) that I am building.

How are page breaks determined when the page break config is enabled ? Is it based on remaining space or does it attempt to keep groups together ?

Hi Vadim,

I have attempted to create some more example.

See the attached.

Each groups are colour coded and then the detail is in black.

If you look at page 7 you will see a page break has been inserted even though the is space for more rows.

I have attached the rdl as well. It uses the Adventure works 2008 database.

Hi Neil,

Thanks for sharing the further information. I have verified the status of this issue from our issue tracking system and like to share with you that this has been resolved. Please download the latest version of Aspose.Words for Reporting Services 3.7.0. Let us know if you have any more queries.

Hi Tahir,

This was generated using the new version 3.7.0. It is still an issue.

The issues you have found earlier (filed as WORDSRPT-113) have been fixed in this update.


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Hi Neil,

Please accept my apologies for your inconvenience. I am checking this issue and will update you asap.

*Are you able to give me a link to the updated user doc - I have not seen it ?

Neil, user doc is inside distribution package - in Help folder.

Is it based on remaining space or does it attempt to keep groups together ?
It tries to analyze both remaining space and the length of next group.

By the way, if you want document to be as compact as possible you can use option True. It is ‘false’ by default, but sometimes it is useful. It eliminates all intermediate spaces and set row heights to minimum (autofit).

Tahir., we are working with Neil right now on clarification of the issue. I will let you know when all is fine.*

Hi Neil,

I think it is very difficult to keep 2 things at one time in case of multi-level grouping in flow document: 1) eliminate spaces and shifts inside a table 2) have repeating rows inside a table on each page (strongly at the top).

Instead, I would recommend to move repeating rows into Page Header area.

Please see how it will look in attachment.

The big advantage of this approach is that you will be able to edit your document (add or remove any number of rows etc) after conversion.

Could it solve your issue?

Regards,
Vadim

Hi,

Unfortunately, I don’t think it will give a very nice user experience having disconnected headers in their documents.

I do not think it is a problem if a small portion of the page is not compete, similar to my previous example - however with the data I am using to create the actual report required by the users the page break is inserted half (maybe less) in to the page - Is that something you would now expect based on your findings ?

Hi Vadim,

I have just been looking at your output again.

The current problems with it

1 - Will be difficult to align the headers correctly to the table

2 - White spaces can be seen between the header and table

3 - It is not how word handles tables so users will not be happy working with the document

4 The header will become quite bloated if there are a number of items required above the main tablix

5 - Does this issue only occur with a certain number of grouping levels

What are your current thoughts on this ? Do you think there will be a viable solution that your team can provide ? It is unfortunately a show stopper for us and would have to go for another product.

Hi Neil,

I agree with you about repeating rows in Page Header - that was just quick workaround proposal.

We didn’t have requirements similar to yours previously, but we will try to implement this.

Right now I am working on combining 2 options - ‘Page Breaks on Each Page’ and ‘Shrink Space’. I hope it will allow to have repeating rows on each page and no extra space in the same time. But in this case some groups will be broken in the middle, is it fine with you?

I will send you hotfix for this functionality as soon as it will be ready.

Regards,
Vadim

Thanks Vadim, that’s correct - breaking mid group (at the bottom of the page) will be expected.

Appreciate the help.

Neil.

Hi Neil,

I am done with hotfix for new functionality - Don’t Break Groups.

Please look at the document sample in attachment - no more extra space, repeating headers are on top of each page.

If this is acceptable - please download hotfix DLL in attachment (need unzipping) and replace old one on your PC.

You will need to use following config for your report -
OnEachPageFalse

Please try it on your side and let us know about results.

Regards,
Vadim

Hi Vadim,

Looks promising, thank you. A couple of issues though

1 - On the report I am creating it appears that some random page breaks are occurring (and a blank page is appended at the end now depending on the data run for). I have attached screenshots. I have tried to replicate it with the test rdl. I have have semi reproduced it. If you run it you will see on page 7 that the group header is written and then a page break is inserted. however, if you save the document and re-open it the table re-fits itself to a single page but an empty page still appears. This does not happen with the non-test report, even saving it and reopening it keeps the row on the new page and a page break

2 - I had the shrink config applied as you suggested earlier as well and that seems to disable your fix. The headers do not repeat (the page breaks are disabled it appears)

Unrelated - It appears that the break page config is required in order to get headers to repeat (in most of the test reports I have created). Is there a general reason why headers do not repeat when using the default breaking.

Hi Neil,

  1. Yes, this is known inconsistency with long tables in flow layout documents. In layout model a table may fits well into a page, but after converting and opening in Word it may be slightly longer than a page, and so Word moves the last row to a new page. To resolve such situation there is special config option - SpacingFactor, it is used for proportional decreasing of all space elements in a document. For example, you can use 0.95 (I tried this with your RDL and it works fine - please check). Spacing Factor doesn’t touch font sizes, line widths, image sizes etc, but only spacings. For more details please see ‘Spacing Factor’ section in user doc.

  2. Right, it is better not to use ShrinkSpace at the same time with breaks OnEachPage. ShrinkSpace was initially implemented for exporting to (M)HTML format, in order to eliminate all possible page/table breaks and extra spaces, and also force autofit option for table rows. I was thinking about it just as workaround. But if you want to use them together, put ShrinkSpace item before PageBreaks item.

>It appears that the break page config is required in order to get headers to repeat
You are right, in this hotfix repeating headers are exported only when OnEachPage break is active. Because only in this case we may be 100% sure that repeating headers are placed exactly on top of pages (right after page break). We will work further on improving this.

Actually I can revert functionality with OnEachPage, so you will be able to generate reports with just DontBreakGroups, and if only something is wrong - add OnEachPage config item.

Buy the way, what is more clear for understanding from your point of view - DontBreakGroups=false, or BreakGroups=true? It seems second one, right?

Regards,
Vadim