An Advanced Look at the Page Designer Block

I’ve been getting many requests on a deeper explanation of the Page Designer Block – so here it is!

The Page Designer Block is perfect for displaying the data in your base in a more visually appealing way. If you have reports that you need to see that summarize your underlying data, this may be a good solution for you.

As I’ve said many times before, the Page Designer Block has some serious limitations. These two things make it a tough solution to fully embrace, so I would be remiss if I didn’t address them briefly.

1. The Page Designer Block can’t be automated – reports need to be manually printed or saved.
2. The Page Designer Block can’t extend past one page automatically – the size of the output is not dynamic to the underlying data.

That being said, if these two drawbacks don’t impact your needs, then this block is a great solution!

In brief, if you’ve been struggling to get your data to show on up on a page, the biggest tip is to remember that this block looks at one record at a time. Always consider this when building the block, because it will fundamentally impact the way you approach the design.

Also remember that you can view the data that is linked to the record that you’re viewing. So, as in our video example, if you want to add the reviews to the page, they must be directly linked to the record you’re looking at. If that requirement is met, you can then view all of the data associated with those reviews (i.e. Author, Rating, etc.)

The Page Designer Block is a flexible tool with a ton of formatting options. It might not be as flexible as Microsoft Word, but it’s a great way to get beautiful (page) outputs of your data!