Creating multi-column PDF output

[karlhansen]

I am creating data that consists of a single QR code and a user name beneath it.  This does work, but it creates one column down the center of the generated PDF. 

Is there any way to create four (or three or five) columns instead of just that one column?

My research has uncovered many ways to split and recombine regular workflow columns, and many ways to process data into columns when reading from PDFs, but nothing concerning how to lay out the PDF into multiple columns.  I have a feeling I am *just* missing some crucial piece of information for a Reporting tool configuration.

[TheMattLeonard · Accepted solution]

What you are trying to accomplish sounds relatively straight forward, but in typical Alteryx fashion that may mean that the solution actually takes a decent number of tools to get there.

If you're trying to go from a single column to multiple columns just in order to space things out, rather than splitting to columns based on some sort of criteria, you'll want to start out with a tile Tool. "Equal Records" will be your Tile Method, and the number of Tiles will be your number of eventual columns in the output. You will then use a CrossTab tool and select Tile_Num as your field for new headers, and your original field as the values This will effectively pivot your data into the format you need.

Beyond that, if you're using the Render Tool to produce the final output, look into using a layout tool beforehand as that can help you shape things as you need before exporting. 

It's tough to know exactly how this will work without seeing your data, but I hope this at least can get you started in the right direction.

[karlhansen]

@TheMattLeonard -- I was close, and your reply gave me the confidence to figure out what I needed.  I'll mix in what I did with your valuable suggestions.  Thank you for your help!

This is the layout of the tools:

Adding the Tile tool set to 4 created my future column headers Tile_Num.

 

The crosstab set my columns in order, but I had to also group by the secondary Tile_SequenceNum field.

This created an unbalanced final row, which I ultimately left alone.  Would have been nice to make those evenly spaced and blank, but nothing I tried worked, and at least it is printing properly.

The Layout tool set each record across four columns...

 

... resulting in a matching PDF output.