Adding Page Breaks to Tables

If you have text overlapping a footer or missing from a printout, ensure that any long content is enclosed in an element that will split across pages.

The Report Generator has specific rules for where page breaks can occur. A <table> tag nested inside a <td> tag is cut off at the bottom if it spreads across multiple pages. Only the following tags split correctly if they are spread across multiple pages:

          <table>
<ul>
<p>
<pre>
<ol>
<h1>
<h2>
<h3>
<h4>
<blockquote>

For more information about the tags that support table pagination, see Page 17 of the BFO (Big Faceless Organization) Guide.

The following example shows a typical table layout.

          <!-- start of item table in transaction  -->
<#list record.item as item>
    <#if item_index==0> <!-- Header Definition -->
        <tr>
            <th>${item.field1@label}</th>
            <th>${item.long_text_field@label}</th>
            <th>${item.field2@label}</th>
            <!-- ... -->
        </tr>
    </#if>
    <tr>
        <td>${‌item.field1}</td>
        <td>${item.long_text_field}</td>
        <td>${‌item.field2}</td>
        <!-- ... -->
    </tr>
</#list>
<!-- end of item table in transaction  -->

If item.long_text_field contains more than 2000 text characters, one table line can span the whole page and overflow, and the data can be truncated. If it is necessary to print a long table over more than one page, use code similar to the following.

          <!-- start of item table in transaction  -->
<#list record.item as item>
    <#if item_index==0> <!-- Header Definition -->
        <tr>
            <th>${item.field1@label}</th>
            <th>${item.long_text_field@label}</th>
            <th>${item.field2@label}</th>
            <!-- ... -->
        </tr>
    </#if>
    <#list item.long_text_field?split("<br />") as paragraph>
        <#if paragraph_index==0>
            <tr>
                <td>${‌item.field1}</td>
                <td>${paragraph}</td>
                <td>${‌item.field2}</td>
                <!-- ... -->
            </tr>
        <#else>
            <tr>
                <td></td>
                <td>${paragraph}</td>
                <td></td>
                <!-- ... -->
            </tr>
        </#if>
    </#list>
</#list>
<!-- end of item table in transaction  -->

You can enter any delimiter that you want. The previous example uses a delimiter of "<br />".

With the #list statement shown in the example, instead of printing out one table row containing all of the paragraphs, more rows are printed. A split function is applied on long_text_field, so "paragraph1<br />paragraph2<br />paragraph3" becomes a list of values "paragraph1","paragraph2","paragraph3". To print the list of paragraphs, in the first row, all of the fields and the first paragraph of long_text_field are printed. In each subsequent row, one paragraph of long_text_field is printed and all other cells are left blank.

A table that looked like this before:

Field 1	Long Text Field	Field 2
Value 1	Paragraph 1 Paragraph 2 Paragraph 3	Value 4
—	Paragraph 1 Paragraph 2 Paragraph 3 Paragraph 4	Value 5
Value 3	Paragraph 1	Value 6

Field 1

Long Text Field

Field 2

Value 1

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

Value 4

—

Paragraph 1

Paragraph 2

Paragraph 3

Paragraph 4

Value 5

Value 3

Paragraph 1

Value 6

Now looks like this:

Field 1	Long Text Field	Field 2
Value 1	Paragraph 1	Value 4
—	Paragraph 2	—
—	Paragraph 3	—
Value 2	Paragraph 1	Value 5
—	Paragraph 2	—
—	Paragraph 3	—
—	Paragraph 4	—
Value 3	Paragraph 1	Value 6

Field 1

Long Text Field

Field 2

Value 1

Paragraph 1

Value 4

—

Paragraph 2

—

Paragraph 3

—

Value 2

Paragraph 1

Value 5

—

Paragraph 2

—

Paragraph 3

—

Paragraph 4

—

Value 3

Paragraph 1

Value 6

With each paragraph in a separate row, as many rows as possible are fit onto the page, and any rows that do not fit are moved to the next page.

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