Quote:And when you cant get multiline headers, set colume widths, set alignments or formats easily

Foster
The property editor allows you to set widths, alignments, and formats. Nor does it require you to learn (read: memorize) a multitude of single letter codes, indeed it even provides live examples of the formatting. I know that for those of you who have been using Q&A for 15+ years, that having to type something like:
2,AS, SC, ST, C, T, H(25:My Column Header), F(JC, U), TL
... then pressing Shift-F6 to select fonts and text formatting actually does come naturally and easily to you. However, a newcomer might find it quite daunting, as opposed to (for example) clicking BOLD on a list of available text formats.
And while HTML reports may on occassion need to be "tidied-up" in a word processor or spreadsheet - at least they can be. The only way to import a Q&A report into anything other than Q&A is by printing to file, and then you have to go through and get rid of all the places where there are blank lines and repeated column headers for each "page" in the file because they don't correspond to the page breaks in your word processor. Not to mention having lost all the formatting information in the process.
Something to consider is that, for much of the current business world (including small business), a report printed on paper is absolutely the last thing anyone wants. Reports have become an active principle - a document. We have a number of Q&A clients who have to deliver reports to their customers. The comment we most often hear is that, while they like being able to do their work in Q&A, their customers consider the reports produced by Q&A to be unacceptable. They just aren't "pretty" enough. The customer wants it via email. They want to import it into Excel and resort it by different columns. They want to forward it to their boss and three colleagues after annotating/amending it. They have little to no interest in printing it, because they really don't want paper. These are all real world business requirements that Q&A just can't meet. Sesame, as a current product, needed be capable of handling the "active" quality of today's reporting requirements.
Over and beyond pagination issues, a report is not just a table anymore. Reports often need to be accompanied by additional charts, spreadsheets, and explanatory text, summaries, and conclusions, cover sheets, and occasionally indexes. Nevermind tables of contents. Many times, the contents of a report need to be folded into and combined with the reports of others as they progress, being edited, amended and appended.
Being able to make a simple table is a good thing. And being able to do so simply is also good. But having to renumber all of your columns if you insert a new column - isn't simple. Having to remember numerous pnuemonic (and not so pnuemonic) codes, isn't simple. Having to type that code into a field that cannot accomodate it (try typing in a radio button or a choice list) isn't simple. Being completely unable to use my report for anything other than a printed table, is frustrating beyond all else.
Hammer here: Here's a actual real world example. Last week, Bill Halpern asked me for some figures. I pulled up my Sesame database and ran the report he wanted in Preview. When it came up in my browser, I hit the Send Page button, put in Bill's email address and hit Send. Done. He had a nicely formatted report in his email, where he could look at it however he wanted, including using his browser to instantly make the text larger. And I didn't have to print it out and fax it to him!

In addition, if he wanted, he could immediately forward it to the accountant, search inside it for a particular item using his browser/email search function, or drop it into the business plan he was creating in Word. No muss, no fuss, no bother.
-- The Cow and Hammer (together)