A customer recently requested an unusual report layout. They wanted the field labels in the first column on the page and each record to be a new column on that page. I remembered struggling with a similar layout request years ago and pulled up an old report from 2009. What I came up with then worked fine if you only needed one set of labels on each page, meaning that the columns were so tall that there wasn’t room to fit a second set below the first one each page. In 2009 I had half-height columns which meant two sets of labels along the left side of the page. That got very complicated.

Fortunately my current project had full page columns, which meant my 2009 solution was a perfect fit. Here are the steps:
1) Create a static value formula that can be used as a group. I usually use something like this:

WhileReadingRecords; 1

2) Group on this formula, and in the group options check “repeat Group Header on each page”
3) Make the group header about 6 inches deep and type all the field labels along the left side.
4) Make your details section about 6 inches deep and put the corresponding fields in.
5) Go into the section expert for the details section and check “Format with multiple columns”.
6) When the layout tab appears set the width of the column to an appropriate number.
7) Check the layout options: “Across then down” and “Format Groups with multiple columns”.

Note – you can do something similar with a cross-tab, but the additional pages for cross-tabs are all to the right on page 1 when in preview.  And the layout isn’t as flexible with a cross-tab.