A grid is a collection of fields organized in rows and columns. Rows can be added, inserted, and deleted from the grid. Rows can be moved up or down within the grid. Rows can also be moved between grids using the Cut and Paste operations. All rows operations can be performed using the buttons on the Field Actions toolbar.
A grid on a newly added page will have a single empty row. To fill the row with data start at the leftmost column’s field and work to the rightmost column by using the Tab button to move right. When tabbing past the rightmost column of the last row the program will prompt you and ask if you want to add another row. If you elect to add the new row then the program will tab to the first editable column field on this row. Otherwise it will tab out of the grid and to the next editable field on the page.
The program seamlessly handles the situation where there are more rows then will fit in the physical space provided by the form. It does this by allowing all rows of the grid to be edited on the main page, and then by generating the continuation pages only at print time. This way the user is not forced to manually create continuation pages as the number of rows becomes large. Keeping all of the rows on the main page during editing is also convenient when sorting the rows of a grid, or just when searching for a row.
When there are more rows in a grid then will fit in the vertical space provided on the form, the program will show a scrollbar next to the grid in the Form Page pane. This scrollbar shows what portion of the rows in the rows in the entire grid are currently being displayed. The scrollbar is not shown when all rows fit in the space provided for the grid on the page.
Scrolling through the rows of a grid with many rows can be done simply by using either the keyboard, or the buttons on the Field Actions toolbar. For more information see the topic Navigating Rows and Cells.
Lines can be drawn horizontally between the rows of a grid. The style of the line can be changed from a dotted line, to a solid line, to many others. This can also be turned off so that no lines draw at all. See the topic Grid Format Options for more detail.
In most grids there is an item number column. These item numbers are automatically generated by the program to reduce user entry. When rows are moved the item number is changed accordingly. When rows are inserted all item numbers bellow it are incremented. When a row is deleted, all item numbers bellow it are decremented. The item number for a row can also be suppressed so that it is blank for this row. See the topic Suppressing Item Numbers for more detail.
Many grids have a description column that allows for multiple lines of text to be entered. The program allows for the entire description to be entered in a single row. When you are done editing the description column the program will adjust the height of the rows to fit the description. If you wish to keep the description column of the field brief you can include the full detail of the description on an attached worksheet by attaching the Extended Description Worksheet to this field.
When the row’s description field has multiple lines the height of the row will be adjusted to the description field’s height. This will also increase the height of the column fields that can contain only a single line of text such as a amount column or a date column. By default the amount fields will align to the bottom of the row and the data columns will align to the top. This default alignment can be changed using the field menu. Many other formatting options can be changed for individual column fields. See the topic Changing a Field’s Appearance for more details. Field formatting defaults can also be changed for all fields using the Field Default Options menu.