Cognos ReportNet 8.4 Repeater Table using conditional style

[muthu]

I'm using Cognos ReportNet 8.4 and am having problems with a repeater table. I have data that looks like this:

Year Name
1990 John Doe
1990 Jane Smith
1991 Brian Jones
1992 Michael White
1992 Tom Jones
1992 Mickey Mouse
...

I want to show this data in a repeater table with 4 columns across (top to down,left to right) and only show the year when it is different than the previous record. So the final output should look like this:

1990
John Doe
Jane Smith

1991
Brian Jones

1992
Michael White
Tom Jones
Mickey Mouse

There are thousand of records that need to be shown on the report and will span several pages, across 4 columns. I've created a repeater table with a table inserted with one column and two rows. The first row has the year and the second row has the name. I've added a conditional style on the year, to NOT display if it has the same value of the previous record. This conditional style is working. The problem is there are unwanted empty values in the final report. For example, if the first column had a year displayed, the column immediately to the right will have an empty cell next to it rather than having a name in it. It seems like the repeater table is enforcing the size of the repeater cell across all columns. So if Column 1, Row 1 has Year and Name, then Column 2 - 4, row 1 will have a space for 2 columns, regardless if it needs it or not. Hopefully that is clear.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get these empty cells removed? Let me know if you need clarification.

Thanks!