We recently upgraded to SQL ServerReporting Services 2008 and are experiencing an issue with exporting reports in PDF format. Some of our reports have tables that are too big to fit onto one page. Using SSRS 2005, the table would start on the first page and then the extra rows would be pushed onto the second page. Now that we've upgraded to SSRS 2008, the entire table is pushed to the second page so there's a big empty space on the first one. We also have reports with subreports (with a page break before each instance of the subreport). In SSRS 2008, there will be random pages midway through the report file where the page breaks are totally ignored. We are running a parallel install of SSRS 2005 with the same exact RDL files, and the reports render perfectly fine on there. Any assistance is appreciated.....

Hi Justin - there are some behavior changes and defect fixes made between 2005 and 2008 in pagination logic. You should be able to alter your report slightly to achieve the behavior you desire. Open your report in the 2008 designer and check the KeepTogther properties of your data region (tablix) and any row groups. These control the behavior to forcibly keep items lumped together on the same page. Another common problem is horizontal whitespace. You might have blank space defined to the right of your data region that is larger than the width of the page. This will trigger a horizontal page showing that whitespace. Last thing to check is page breaks, you could have one defined on one of your groups to page break at start. Hope that helps -JonHPMicrosoft SQL Server Reporting Services

I'm having a similar issue, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. The report I'm trying to create is essentially a horizontal table spread out over a couple pages - something I've done countless times in SSRS2k5. The report is sort of a status report for phone sample, showing counts of records for each classification. There is a row for each record classification type (completed a survey, told us to call back, did not answer, phone disconnected, etc), and then across the top we have six months of data, each month broken into 2 record classifications (record type 1 and record type 2). Since we're not using the built-in aggregating of the tablix, all of the math and grouping and aggregation is done in the database. The data set for the report has each classification as its own field and then all of the individual records keyed by month and record type - basically a pivoted version of the report. We also put a page number into the dataset so we can force the page break to happen at the right place.On the report itself, I have a list (tablix) with a row grouping on the dataset-supplied page number, keep together = true, and a page break being inserted between each instance of the group. Inside the list I have a matrix (tablix) linked to the same dataset, with column groupings on month and then record classification as a child group of month. When the report renders to the reportviewer window, it looks fine, but when I choose print layout or render the report to PDF, a blank page is inserted after each page of data, making my 2-page report four pages (one good, one blank, one good, one blank). Obviously the first thing I tried was cutting down the tablixes themselves, and removing the margins, and making sure it's all oriented properly -- but it's just not doing what I want it to do.If ANYONE can shed some light on this, I'd be much obliged. I've never had this problem in the past so I can only assume a change in SQL 2008 is more than likely causing the issue.Thanks in advance.Adam

Adam,Similar issue here. Have a report that was converted from SSRS 2005 to 2008. Upon rendering in 2008 and exporting to PDF, each detail row has significant whitespace between each detail row inside the group. The extra whitespace appears to be precisely the amount of space occupied by the group footers for subtotals, but yet, they should not be showing for the detail items, right?! Frustrating as this has completely ruined a great looking PDF export subscription we had going. Really looking for some help here as the hair pulling is bound to start soon. ;) Blessings.

Tech4Him - I actually solved my problem a while back. Stupid oversight on my part really. The root of the issue was this: I had a bunch of header stuff on the landscape-oriented report that spanned about 10". The total width of my matrix was maybe 3". The matrix would expand to the right one column at a time, but the rendering engine then sees another 7" or so of white space it needs to render, pushing my report way too wide to fit on a single page, therefore inserting a blank page between each "real" page. The reason I hadn't encountered this in SSRS2005 was because the layout of the reports I had been doing there was different - they had more "stuff" to the right of the matrix, and the page header only had a title, which was centered on top. So, the extra stuff to the right extended about as far as the right edge of my title, and that was as wide as I made the report body, which still allowed just under half a page for the matrix to do its thing before running out of space.Unfortunately, there's no great solution for this. Since my report was a pretty straightforward one, I pivoted the data in my stored procedure and then pulled it into a table instead. It felt like kind of a crappy compromise, but I couldn't find another way to have a header the width of the page that would allow me to put the data into a matrix instead of the table. Maybe a subreport? I don't know. I didn't want to try that for a number of reasons.Adam

I, too, converted over 250 reports from RS 2005 to RS 2008. They seemed to work fine until modification was needed.Now the reports that have needed modification will not start their table or listing on the first page. What is going on? This is extremely frustrating. All of the reports that had tables or listings have been replaced with a tablix with the conversion. What is a tablix and why is it acting so differently then a simple listing or table (which is what most my reports are). This'upgrade' has cost memany hours of work and I still do not have any modified reports working. By modified, I mean I changed the expression within a textfield withinthe tablix. Now the headers and not starting on the first page are making my life a living hxxx. Also, theinterface within Visual Studio is terrible. No gridline, rulers, etc. You call this an improvement?

Hi,I have a problem with SSRS 2005.I have a report which is about 2 pages tall and 50 pages wide. When I print, SSRS goes Over and then Down. I want it to go Down then Over.It seems in SSRS the default page rendering is set to "Over then Down"Can anyone help me alter it in SSRS?Thanks,-SG

Adam Schmidt is absolutely correct in his post, but I'm not sure that it was absolutely clear. I had the same issue with a matrix (tablix) which contains a rolling 12 month table of data. This was already set to print on landscape/legal due to the length of the crosstab, but when exporting to PDF, there was an extra page break after every page. The issue was I had a page header that I set to span to 13 inches in order to center the text of the page header over the final render of the report. It appears that SSRS takes the length of the page header and ADDS it to the dynamic length of the tablix, thereby exceeding the page width. I had set the interactive size to all zeroes, the margins to all zeroes, as was suggested in SSRS 2005, to no affect. After I shrunk the page header to the width of the matrix in design mode, the extra page break disappeared. Now, my header isn't centered, but I am wondering if there may be a way to set the padding of the text within the header programmatically (in the expression dialog) to be the width of the page minus x amount...we'll see.Vince

I am running into the exact same problem when rendering into PDF. The PDF format is Landscape with a page width of 11" and a height of 8.5". The page has margins set up for 1/10 of an inch both left and right. The body of the report itself is only 10.3 inches wide, with zero margins. The tablix is 9.8" in width. The header width fits within the body just fine... I am continually getting a page break between each group. I have tried the setting of interactive sizes to all zero, and had no effect Have no idea what the deal is...!A. M. Robinson

Hi, What was the solution, anyone!!!

Has anyone heard from anyone at Microsoft about this? This is clearly a bug with Reporting Services. I have a customer that specifies a company logo in the upper right corner of all reports. Not a big problem I would have thought. We produce reports from their OLAP cubes and go to a lot of trouble to make them look professional and fit pages etc... "I'm sorry but you'll have to change all of your documentation standards because there's a bug in your new reporting platform." is not an acceptable answer to any customer, Microsoft. We haven't heard from anyone on this for two years now. Is anyone as frustrated as me?

Judging by the number of folks posting "I have the SAME problem", it seems Microsoft HAS an issue that nobody wants to admit to... I just changed from portrait, which rendered a single-column tablix with a chart in the header PERFECTLY on ONE PAGE, to landscape and now I get 2 pages per chart... Page margins are .25 top and bottom, and both sides. Page header is 1.5" Page Footer is 0.75, leaving 5.75" for my tablix. Tablix is 5.5" deep by 11". Changing the Tablix to 10.5 makes no difference. Setting all the "Keep Together" = True, makes no difference. As a FRUSTRATED poster put it... "What is the solution", 'cos the so-called "answer" AIN'T IT, MATE! Clues, anyone???

I was about to add my voice to the growing number of individuals having this problem. I had checked EVERYTHING; margins, tablix width, headers, footers, Keep Together, all of it. Everything said I had more than enough space, it was obviously a bug. Except it wasn't, and I was kind of an idiot. Before you write this off as a bug, make sure you check one last thing. The Body properties. Right click on an empty space on your report to bring up the menu, and select 'Body Properties'. Take a look at the size. If it's wider or longer than your page size... there you go. That white space you see when designing the report isn't just there to give you a palette to draw upon, it's representing your page, and if it's wider or longer than your paper is, it'll give you a blank page as it tries to accomodate what you've asked for. I shrunk mine down, and it made my 'missing page bug' go away. This may not work for everyone (again, I was missing the obvious), but it might just work for you.If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.