I do not know much about continuous forms because I never use them.
But from what I understand, you cannot copy a column or a row and
paste it into another in a continuous form. One of my users can order
a style in 20 colors, filling in the Body Color column with each
color. The style could have a matching trim color. If so they can
easily copy the column's data over to the the Trim Color column. This
is just an example of many vertical copy and paste things. There are
examples too of wanting to copy and paste records (horozontal data).
My company has a computer that uses continuous datasheets and they are
a huge mistake. The users hate it as they should.
When my users have 50 rows and they must fill them all in with White,
all they have to do is press control quotes and the machine copies it
all down from the first (I set my control quotes to drop down one
after it fills it in so you don't have to be a piano player to fill in
all 50.) I've also created some other tools to make data entry easy.
I want my users to love me! Sure, you can program anything in a
continous form too, but I believe the datasheet is freer for copying
and pasting into excel as well, no?
Now perhaps continuous forms can copy and paste without programming
and if so it may be my loss.
Another reason I do not like continuous forms is that they cannot be
resized by the user, as you say below. This is a huge disadvantage to
me. I am presently creating a Projection sheet where a user fills in
data by months. So there are 12 columns for the months and another 5
columns for the key fields, and 5 others (to the right and not visible
without a scroll) for other data.
Yes, the 5 key fields could be header items but they may want to roll
up the data and not see, for example, by size. My query handles the
roll up by changing the size to "All". So instead of seeing the size
column read "All," I was thinking of making it dissappear as well.
Hence, my question.
But anyway, my datasheet is too wide already and there isn't a good
solution. It fits what they need to see and has the option to scroll
over just in case they want to roll up to a higher category of goods,
let's say, a Store, or a Division. If these columns were not there,
rolling up would not identify the data's Division, for example.
Anyway, there is no problem with what I am doing and making the column
disappear, my original question, may even be a bad thing.
Anyway, with this said, I may look into using a continuous form to do
a specific task. It may be easier on the mind and eyes.
Matt