REPORTS 2.5: Newbie Group Manipulation Queston

I hope I explain this coherently -

I have a report with 2 groups, PLANNERS and ITEMS. I have the report set so that each planner starts printing on a separate page. In the repeating frame ITEMS frame, I have a format function that tests for the value of a field and if it's > 0 I don't print the line (return (false)). Everything works fine except for one thing; all PLANNERS print even though some of them have no associated ITEMS.

I've tried removing the PLANNERS group and having the planners be part of the ITEMS group and while this works at stopping PLANNERS from printing if no ITEMS exist, the ones that do print are duplicated for each line and I really need the PLANNER to only print once at the top of the report.

I don't understand anchors and enclosing and anchoring objects which is where I suspect the answer lies here. Can anyone explain how I can accomplish the above in somewhat simple terms?

Also, can anyone suggest ways to learn Oracle Reports 2.5? How is Oracle's training on this topic? The only book I found is "Learning Oracle Reports 2.5" by Stephen Edelstein. Are there any others out there?

Thanks for all responses.

Steve
skondolf_at_hatespam.frontiernet.net
skondolf_at_hatespam.compuserve.com

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