Page mode

In JReport Designer, you can set the page mode of a report tab: pagination mode and continuous mode. This section describes these two page modes and how to switch between them.

Pagination mode

In pagination mode, the page shape and size can be specified in the page panel settings. Once set, the contents of the report tab will be laid out according to these specifications. If the contents exceed the specified size, the page break control will start a new page with the same size.

In addition, the total page size is determined both by the contents' size and by the page breaking control, such as Fill Whole Page, On New Page, Page Breaker.

Continuous mode

In continuous page mode, only the component breaking control will work. The whole report tab is laid out in a single page, and has no specific shape and size. If no component breaking control has been set, all of the components will be laid out in the same page, and the size of the page will depend on the size of the contents.

In addition, all of the properties set in pagination mode will be simply skipped, including the page breakers in page panel. In this way, if there is more than one page panel in a report tab, all contents contained in different page panels will be laid out in the same page, and only the first page panel's page header and footer will be laid out.

Component breaking rule

In continuous page mode, JReport Designer provides you with an option for breaking a component in continuous page mode. This kind of breaking is not based on space, but on logic. For example, you can set a group break to occur every 20 detail sections, no matter how big these 20 detail sections are.

The following three components have logic break functionality: banded object, table and crosstab:

• For banded objects, the logic break acts only on the sub-components - detail panel and group panel.
• For tables, the logic break acts only on the sub-components - table detail and table group.
• For crosstabs, the logic break acts on the whole crosstab.

And, several properties are related to the component logic break:

• For banded objects and tables, there are two relative properties: Current Block Index and Items per Block.
• For crosstabs, besides the two properties mentioned above, there are also four extra properties: Current Row Block Index, Current Column Block Index, Items per Row Block and Items per Column Block.

Switching between the two page modes

To switch between the two page modes, you can choose either of the following ways:

• Select or unselect Page Layout on the View menu.
• Click the Page Layout button on the Report toolbar.