This band is used to print a header above a group. Let's examine a real world situation for using a sort band header.

Let's use a mailing list as an example. Your organization has members all over the United States in each of the fifty states. When your mailing list prints you want the output to be nicely formatted with a title above each state to be make locating people in a specific state very quick and easy. An example output without a group header may resemble:

 AL    Bob McKinley  

 AL    Chuck Connors

 AL    David Spinley

 AZ    Alan Sockworth

 AZ    Frank Sputz

 AZ    Henry Rollins

And an example output with a fancy sort band header:

 ____________

 State: AL

 ____________

           AL    Bob McKinley  

           AL    Chuck Connors

           AL    David Spinley

 ____________

 State: AZ

 ____________

           AZ    Alan Sockworth

           AZ    Frank Sputz

           AZ    Henry Rollins

Obviously a group header can be as simple or fancy as required. Different font types and colors can be used to help separate groups of data as needed. Aside from bring far more visually appealing for the user, they also aid in locating data that is grouped together much more efficiently.

A group header can contain a mixture of text and database field information. Use the frame charactistics dialogue box to help you build the group header. The above example frame contents would resemble:

 The actual report band would resemble: