Design and Layout of a Report Using Report Designer

The Design Workspace is the area where the report can be styled to reflect a customised look and feel. Whatever is entered in the header will appear at the top of every page, and whatever is placed in the detail band will be in the body of the report.

Settings
From the [Report] Menu at the top of the ReportQuest design screen, select [Units] and make sure that it is set to inches.
At the same time make sure that in the [View] Menu the menu item [Show Data] is ticked.

Labels

Putting labels (Column Headers) in the header area.
Locate the [label icon] on the toolbar.

Click on the [A] icon.

Click in the white space of the header band in order to create a label.

Create three more labels in the header band.

Setting the Label Name

Select [Label1] and locate the edit toolbar. It should contain the text Label1, which is the caption of the currently selected label.

Highlight the text in the edit toolbar and type 'Serial Number'.
Select [Label2] and type 'Document Title' into the edit toolbar.
Select [Label3] and type 'Owner' into the edit toolbar.
Select [Label4] and type 'Revision' into the edit toolbar.

Saving the report

At this stage it would be a good idea to save the report!

Press [Ctrl+S], or select [Save] from the [File] menu, to save the report.

Select the folder [New Folder]. (This will usually be under All Folders as this may be the only folder with the correct permissions).

In the dialogue box select [Name], type 'Document List' and make sure that the report is stored in the right folder by using the drop down list at the top of the dialogue box.

Close the report.

The report is now listed in New Folder under All Folders as designated above.

Open the report again.

Right Click on the name and select [Design] or select [File] and then [Design].

This will open the report again.

Changing the Labels style

Select the Document Title label.

Hold down the shift key and select the other three labels.

All four labels should now show they are selected by the small grey boxes surrounding each label.

These grey boxes are the selection handles.

From the formatting toolbar select the Bold icon.

All four label captions should now be in Bold.

While all the labels are selected they can be aligned with each other.


Select the alignment icon, showing the top align function, from the relative toolbar and all the labels should be correctly aligned along the top with the Serial Number box.



Choosing the data field

Select the [DBText] icon.

Place a DBText component in the Detail band of the report and change the text style from Bold by clicking on the Bold icon.

Add three more DBText components in the Detail Band.

Select [DBText1].

Notice now that where the labels’ edit fields were there are now two drop down list boxes.
The drop down list on the left contains the dataset from the Dataview (the query generated earlier).

The list on the right contains the list of fields returned by that query.

Select [DC:Doc Details.ID] from the right hand list. The first document number (0) should appear as the caption in the DBText1 component.

Select [DBText2] and choose DC:Doc Details.Title from the drop down list, select [DBText3] and choose DC:Doc Details.Owner and finally select [DBText4] and choose DC:Doc Details.Revision.

Adjusting the Label Components

Select the [Serial Number] label and right click. This brings up a flying menu.

From the menu select [Position] and in the dialogue box set the left position as 0.1, and the top position as 0.1.


Right click over the Document Title label and set the left position to 0.8 with the top as 0.25.

Set the Revision label to 3.75, the Status to 4.5, the Owner to 5.5 and the Issue Date to 6.25.

This should now space the Headings across the page.

Adjusting the DBText Component

Select the [Serial Number] DBText component and right click. Set the component to Autosize and the position Top to .1.

Select the [Document Title] DBText and right click. Again set the component to Autosize and the position Top to .05.

Select the other DBText components and do the same as the Document Title.

At this stage the DBText components are not aligned under their relevant headers.

To correct this Select the label Document Title and holding down the shift key select the DBText component DC:Doc Details.Title.

From the align tools select the Left Align icon.

This will bring the DBText left-aligned under the correct header.

Select the Revision Label and Shift-select the DBText DC:Doc Details.Revision and repeat the above step.

Repeat the same process for the Status, Owner, and Issue Date labels and their relevant DBText components.

Save and Close the report.

Check that the report is still listed in All Folders as designated above.

Open the report again.

Right Click on the Name and select Design or select [File] and select [Design].

This will open the report again.

Adding page Title

All it needs now is to add a simple Title that will appear on the first page of the Report.

From the Menu [Report] at the top of the screen, select [Title].
This will “tick” the menu item and will add a new area to the report design screen.

Select the [Text Label] icon and place a text label roughly in the centre of the Title area.

With the text Box highlighted (selection handles showing as black) locate the edit toolbar and type Document List as the title. Using the Text Format icons, change the font size to 16pt and set the text as Bold.

Right Click and position the label box at left 2.5 and .1 from the Top.

Press [Ctrl+S] to save the report.

Preview the Report

To see how the report looks use the Preview Tab.   This will show how the report will look when printed.

Everything should look correct with the exception of the line spacing.

To correct this return to the Design Workspace.

Place the mouse cursor over the grey bar labelled Detail. The cursor will change to an UP/DOWN arrow. Drag the divider up until it meets the bottom of the DBText Components in the detail band.

Preview the report again.

This now gives a finished report with one final area to address.

The top of the report shows document “0” and no details. This needs to be removed.

Refining the Report

Return to the Dataview and find the “Search” icon. Scroll down the list and select [DC:Doc Details.ID].   Double click to move it to the lower box.

Select the box in the column marked Operator, and from the drop down menu, select the greater than (>) symbol.

In the next column, Value, type the figure “0” (zero) and save by selecting the OK button.

This will now remove the row for document 0.

The report is now finished.