Remove Blank Space in Crystal Reports Footer Section

Introduction

If you have a footer section which contains more than one footer and you are suppressing one or the other based on some condition, Crystal will reserve space for all the footers regardless of the suppression logic.

Background

I came across this issue when I started using Crystal for the first time. I had a multiple page report and all the records in the detail section were moving to the 2^nd page although there was space at the bottom of the first page (and the second page). I tried to Suppress blank section on each of the footer subsections like this:

but to no avail. After struggling for a couple of hours, I came across this documentation on Crystal reports.

By default, Crystal Reports reserve space at the bottom of each page for your Page Footer sections. This space is reserved whether or not the Page Footer sections are conditionally suppressed. Normally, the space reserved is equivalent to the combined height of all Page Footer sections that are shown or conditionally suppressed.

So intuitive..!!

Using the Code

Here is the complete documentation for Reserve Minimum Page Footer:

This option enables you to minimize the space reserved for your Page Footer sections, thereby maximizing the space available for valuable report information on each page. This option only affects a Page Footer area with multiple sections.

By default, Crystal Reports reserve space at the bottom of each page for your Page Footer sections. This space is reserved whether or not the Page Footer sections are conditionally suppressed. Normally, the space reserved is equivalent to the combined height of all Page Footer sections that are shown or conditionally suppressed.

You can, however, minimize the space reserved. To do so, first conditionally suppress individual Page Footers as desired. Then select Page Footer in the Sections area of the Section Expert, and select the Reserve Minimum Page Footer option on the Expert's Common tab. When you do this, Crystal Reports will only reserve space on each page for the tallest of your Page Footer sections.

So the only thing you have to do is to check Reserve Minimum Page Footer in the Page footer section properties.

Hopefully this will save you from some annoyance.

Reference

• Common Tab (Section Expert)