I am having trouble implementing a Memo (blob) field in Crystal 8.5. The problem relates to its size and the fact that it takes up a lot of space in my report records (about 10 lines deep), even if it is empty.

 

I was wondering if there was a way to trim this field down, or even allow it to only appear if there is information contained within it? I know Crystal is quite funny about memo fields and you can't use them in formulas etc, so I haven't been able to think of a way to cut the field down.

 

I have the field in a subreport (which is inserted into my main report) and have tried the on-demand function, but this isn't suitable for my requirements. I have also tried scaling the physical size of the field down in my report but to no avail as it reverts to the field's size.

 

Has anybody got any ideas about how to get this memo field down to a decent size and allow it to be trimmed to the information it actually contains? Can this be done? Or is it a no-no with 8.5?

 

At the moment if I implement it I can only get 5 - 6 records on each screen, due to the size of this field. Without this field I am getting much more.

 

Many thanks for any help received!