When ASCII formfeeds have been enabled by default, by the .formfeeds statement, or by the +b flag for the report command, Report-Writer generates an initial formfeed in addition to one at the end of each page of the report. The initial formfeed is useful for printers with continuous‑form paper. To avoid generating this blank page at the beginning of your report, you can use the .nofirstff statement in your report specification to suppress the initial form feed.

You need only specify this statement once in your report source file, preferably immediately after any .formfeed statement and prior to all statements that generate printed text (such as .print, .println, .newline, and .newpage). This statement should not appear in any .detail, .footer, or .header section other than .header report.

If specified in an .include file, its placement in the file must follow the same placement rules as in the report specification source file.

You can omit this statement and use the ‑nofirstff flag on the report command line at runtime instead. You can also override the .nofirstff statement at report runtime by specifying the ‑firstff flag.