Picture a check stub / check. The check stub is 22 lines and the check is 22 lines, for a report length of 44. You have tractor checks. (This is also adaptable to laser by just making the page length 60) where the check stub is the detail of the report, listing the items to be paid, and the check is the subtotals section of the output. You always want the check part to start on a certain line for it to print on the form correctly.
You analyze the check stub and determine how many detail lines will fit on one page (there is usually some headings and stuff printed that might reduce the lines that fit). You must also know if you are printing one line or two lines per detail line (record in filePro). Now you measure the space you have for detail lines, divide by number of lines / record.
So, you may have room for 10 one-line detail lines, or 5 two-line detail lines. So you would set it to -10 in the first case, or -5 in the second case.
Another example would be for a pre-printed invoice form, where it has at the bottom a pre-printed place to put the total of the invoice. If the invoice is designed as a report in filePro which prints more than one charge (record) on one invoice (page), and you want the total to print at the bottom no matter if the invoice was for 1 item or 10 items, then you would use this feature.
The "Number of forms down" will allow you to indicate how many detail lines fill a form to reach the subtotal location on the paper form.
Grand totals do no apply in this situation. Grand totals are always treated as an additional page if you do not tell it to print on the last page, or added after the subtotals when you do tell it to print on the last page. A check or invoice would never make it appropriate to print the grand totals with the subtotals. That would be a summary page that might be printed to tell how much was invoiced or printed. (In the case of the checks, it would waste a check.)
TRY IT
Make a report output, page length 60/66 (depends on what is your standard paper size.)
Add headings, detail line (one line) , and a subtotal section. On the output setup, put -10 for forms down.
Select 5 records that would be in the subtotal section and print.
Try selecting and amount in that subtotal group from 1 to 10 and see what prints.
Now filePro is certainly not having any trouble printing the subtotals it is just where it is to be printed that is affected. Other processing methods might now allow similar results with different methods.
Thanks to Nancy Palmquist for providing this great trick and example.