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Overflow with multiple master pages

The case we deal here is one where we add a tear-off section on the first page of an invoice. The tear-off section will appear below the line items only on the first page. So, we don’t want the line items overflow on the tear-off section.

Note: To provide a certain context for the steps of our how to, we assume that we will start with an existing invoice Print Context that contains an invoice template named Invoice. This section contains placeholder/variable data, texts and detail table for the line items. The logo image is already in the Images folder. A set of resources to get started are available to download here.

Steps

To achieve this, we will need to use Master Pages within our Print context section. The objectives of the master pages are:

  • Used for elements that need to be repeated across pages.
  • Or, used for elements that appear on a specific sheet position.

Thus, in our case we create two master pages:

  1. One for the first page that contains a logo on the header and the tear-off section on the footer.
  2. Another for the other pages created by the overflow. It contains logo and page number on the header and nothing on the footer.

So let’s do that now.

  1. Right click Master page 1 in the Resources panel and select Properties.
  2. Enter the header and the footer margins. e.g. 1.5in in the Header (for the logo) and 3.5in in the Footer.
  3. Enter a new name for this master page, e.g. FirstPage. Click OK. So, in the Master pages folder in the Resources panel, we note the master page named FirstPage. Double click on it and the main editor is displayed.
  4. Drag the logo image from the Images folder to the main editor. Click on the border of the image to move it to the required position in the header. e.g. in the upper left corner.
  5. Insert an absolute positioned box via the main toolbar. Click on the border of the box to move it to the required position in the footer. Set the geometry attributes to fit the footer margin space.
  6. Enter the tear-off section information in the box. E.g. the text Tear-off and return your payment. Thank you center on the top of the box and add some variable data (i.e. drag and drop fields from the data model).
  7. Toggle back to the Section 1, we note that the tear-off is shown in the footer of the document and is repeated over the pages created by the overflow. To fix that, we create a new master page for the overflowing pages.
  8. Right click Master pages folder and select New Master page.
  9. Right click on this master page created and select Properties.
  10. Enter the Header margin, e.g. 1.5in (for the logo). and keep the default Footer margin.
  11. Enter a new name for this master page, e.g. OtherPages. Click OK.
  12. Double click on the master page OtherPages. The main editor is displayed.
  13. Drag the logo image from the Images folder to the main editor. Click on the border of the image to move it and resize it to the required position in the header. e.g. in the upper left corner.
  14. Now, we should set the master pages to use in different sheets of the document via the section sheet configuration property.
  15. Right click on the Section 1 and select Sheet configuration. The Print section properties window is open directly on the Sheet configuration options.
  16. First of all, untick the Same for all positions checkbox.
  17. In each sheet type, the master pages are displayed in the list. So we have just to select in Master Page Front list the master page we want to use for each sheet:
    1. Single Sheet: In Master Page Front, select FirstPage.
    2. First Sheet: In Master Page Front, select FirstPage.
    3. Middle Sheet(s): In Master Page Front, select OtherPages.
    4. Last Sheet: In Master Page Front, select OtherPages.
  18. Click OK.
  19. Toggle back to Section 1 by double clicking on it. The logo image is shown in the upper left corner of the document and the tear-off is shown in the bottom of the document.
  20. Switch to the preview mode and browse through the records to see that the tear-off section is shown only in the first page of the document and not in the overflowing pages.

This can be achieved with Duplex printing. However, it would require a master page for both the front and back of the first/single page with the tear-off section, so that no overflow occurs in the back, either.

Here is an example of what this procedure should obtain using the resources given above: Solution.

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