Access Cookbook

Create a Page-Range Indicator on Each Page

Problem

You’re creating a report that contains a large number of items. To make it easier to see the range of items on each page, you’d like to create a page-range indicator. This would show the first and last items on the page, as in a telephone book. Is there a way to do this?

Solution

The answer to your question is a qualified yes. You can create such a page-range indicator, but placing it anywhere but in the page footer is difficult. Although you can place it in the page header, the method to do so is quite complex and is the subject of a topic in the Microsoft Access Solutions database (SOLUTIONS.MDB), which shipped with Access 95 and Access 97. You can also download an Access 2000 version of this very useful sample database, called Solutions9.mdb. Search for that name at http://msdn.microsoft.com to find the download.

Because Access prints documents from top to bottom, by the time you know the last item on the page it’s too late to print it at the top of the page. The Solutions database workaround involves forcing the report to format itself twice, capturing the page ranges for all the pages during the first pass and storing the values in an array. When it makes the second pass, you supply the values from the array. That solution requires VBA and is cumbersome. The solution we present here focuses on a simpler method, placing the information you need in the page footer. If you can live with that placement, this solution is straightforward. ...