I have a report that prints out a type of form for official purposes. It has been designed like a typical form with boxes for each type of information. So, rather than a report that prints onto pre-printed forms, I have designed the report in such a way that all the information a pre-printed form would have is integrated into the report design itself.
I have used this for years and I have one quibble with it which I have never been able to solve. The item details of the report is where all the records appear. On one form there will always be at least one record, but no more than 8.
To make the report look reasonably good, I have tried to fix the section where all the records are stored so that it doesn't shorten or lengthen depending on the number of records. I have done this by making a section footer and fixing it's height, so that even though the detail section expands and contracts depending on the number of records, it still looks okay provided there are 3 to 5 records, and bearable if there's less than 3. The problem is when I have 8: because of the fixed height of the footer, there isn't enough room and the report splits across two pages.
The problem obviously is the fixed height of the footer. What I really want is for the print area where the records are to be printed, to be a fixed height irrespective of how many records there are.
Is there any way to do this? I have searched and searched, and not seemed to have found the right solution. I've attached a scrappy picture below that might explain it all better: