Disappearing text boxes when exporting to PDF

I'm having a problem with text boxes disappearing when a report is exported
to PDF. Everything appears fine in the designer and in Report Manager, even
when exporting to Excel, but when the report is exported to PDF, a couple of
text boxes (one being a label above a table, and the other, next to the
label, shows a company name returned from a stored procedure) appear on some
pages of the report, but not on others. There is another text box label, and
another text box beside it which returns a company's branch name...this is
directly under the company name...this appears OK on the PDF. There are no
null/blank company names being returned in the dataset.
I created a test copy of the same report (from scratch) and exported it to
PDF. This time, the company name text boxes that were missing before appeared
OK, but went missing on other pages which were previously fine.
I've tried putting the text boxes into a rectangle, even a list, but to no
avail. I can't really see any pattern to the problem...the two copies of the
report are returning exactly the same data, but the company name text boxes
randomly disappear.
Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Is it a bug?
Thanks in advance.
--
Jadranka Krapic
DBA
Stargate Technologies
(www.stargatetech.com.au)Jadranka wrote:
<snip>
> I've tried putting the text boxes into a rectangle, even a list, but
> to no avail. I can't really see any pattern to the problem...the two
> copies of the report are returning exactly the same data, but the
> company name text boxes randomly disappear.
> Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Is it a bug?
> Thanks in advance.
The "export engines" as they are often called are black boxes and yes,
I think you are seeing evidence that the PDF export engine has defects.
I have "solved" similar problems through hours of fiddling redesign.
The PDF engine has problems with the widths of things, with things next
to each other horizontally, and don't ever overlap ReportItems by so
much as a single twip or you'll regret it.
Interesting that for you also there is no obvious consistent pattern to
what works and what does not, my experience precisely.
I have moaned and groaned about these issues for a week or two without
getting any meaningful answers from Microsoft support, sometimes
without getting any answers at all.
One hopes that SP2 will address these genuine showstopper issues. It's
one thing for members of an IT organization to put up with a
not-done-yet product like Microsoft SQL Reporting Services, quite
another for business users: they WON'T put up with it. They won't buy
solutions based on it. They will renege on deals already made because
of it. They are uninterested in WHY I can't do for them what needs
doing in a way that is useful to them, all they care about is that I
didn't do it as I said I would.
Under the gun but smiling, smiling, I am
Highly Obscure|||I can most definately relate to your experiences! If I weren't smiling
through it all, I reckon I'd be a basket-case!!
Speaking of smiling, the latest installment of this saga had me and the
senior DBA laughing...
Originally, the company name text box label had a location of 0cm, 0cm on
the list that it was sitting on. Thought I'd nudge everything down a little,
just so it wasn't at the very top of the list control. Exported it to
PDF...HEY PRESTO! A perfect PDF report! Go figure.
Still doesn't explain why previously some text box controls were appearing
on some pages and not on others, but I (and the customer) are happy with what
we've got now.
Jadranka.
"HighlyObscure" wrote:
> Jadranka wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > I've tried putting the text boxes into a rectangle, even a list, but
> > to no avail. I can't really see any pattern to the problem...the two
> > copies of the report are returning exactly the same data, but the
> > company name text boxes randomly disappear.
> >
> > Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Is it a bug?
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> The "export engines" as they are often called are black boxes and yes,
> I think you are seeing evidence that the PDF export engine has defects.
> I have "solved" similar problems through hours of fiddling redesign.
> The PDF engine has problems with the widths of things, with things next
> to each other horizontally, and don't ever overlap ReportItems by so
> much as a single twip or you'll regret it.
> Interesting that for you also there is no obvious consistent pattern to
> what works and what does not, my experience precisely.
> I have moaned and groaned about these issues for a week or two without
> getting any meaningful answers from Microsoft support, sometimes
> without getting any answers at all.
> One hopes that SP2 will address these genuine showstopper issues. It's
> one thing for members of an IT organization to put up with a
> not-done-yet product like Microsoft SQL Reporting Services, quite
> another for business users: they WON'T put up with it. They won't buy
> solutions based on it. They will renege on deals already made because
> of it. They are uninterested in WHY I can't do for them what needs
> doing in a way that is useful to them, all they care about is that I
> didn't do it as I said I would.
> Under the gun but smiling, smiling, I am
> Highly Obscure
>