Version 7.3 introduced a new cross-tab report engine. This engine has several advantages over the older engine:

• Page rendering is significantly faster.

• A report can have more than five row fields when sorting on a data field.

• If the report has a page field and a chart, you can specify whether the chart appears at the end of the report (that is, showing data for the entire report) or at the end of each page field value (that is, showing data just for that value).

• You no longer getting a warning if you preview a report that has a data field with Show difference from previous column or Show percentage change turned on and there's more than one horizontal page for the report (that is, more columns than can fit on one page).

There are a couple of other differences with the older engine:

• With the older engine, pagination was horizontal, then vertical. For example, for a report that has enough rows for two sets of vertical pages and enough columns for two sets of horizontal pages (four pages total), the first page contains the first set of rows for the first set of columns, the second page contains the same rows (the first set) for the second set of columns, the third page contains the second set of rows for the first set of columns, and the fourth page contains the same rows (the second set) for the second set of columns.

  

  

  

  

  The new engine uses vertical, then horizontal pagination. For example, for a report that has enough rows for two sets of vertical pages and enough columns for two sets of horizontal pages (four pages total), the first page contains the first set of rows for the first set of columns, the second page contains the second set of rows and the same columns (the first set), the third page contains the first set of rows for the second set of columns, and the fourth page contains the second set of rows and the same columns (the second set).

  

  

  

  

• If one of the data fields in the report has Show difference from previous column or Show percentage change turned on, the older engine did not show a change column for the first or last column values. The new engine does but the first change column has blanks and the change column for Totals has the difference between the last and first columns.

New cross-tab reports default to using the new engine while existing reports use the older engine. To change which engine a report uses, edit the report, click Advanced in step 3, and turn on or off the Use older cross-tab engine setting in the Customize Report Wizard.