Step 5: Formatting Options (Quick Report)

Step 5 allows you to specify formatting options for the report.

The options in this step are:

• Header: text that appears at the top of every page. If you want to use an expression rather than fixed text, such as a user-defined function, precede the expression with an equals sign (=). Here's an example of an expression that displays "Sales for <spelled out month> <year>" (such as "Sales for December 2001") in the report header:

  = 'Sales for ' + cmonth(date()) + ' ' + transform(year(date()))

  Here's an expression that uses the built-in GetConditionValue function, which returns the value of a filter condition for the specified field, to display a header showing "Sales for " a particular country the report is filtered on:

  = "Sales for " + GetConditionValue('customers.country')

  You must be familiar with dBase or FoxPro to use expressions.

• Footer: text that appears at the bottom of every page. As with the header, you can use an expression for the report footer.

• Include filter in report header: if this option is turned on, any filter you've set for the report is displayed in the header of the report.

• Include database in header: turn this option on to include the database name in the header of the report.

• Summary report: if this item is turned on, the report does not print detail information but only those fields that appear in group headers and totaled fields. This option is disabled unless there's at least one group in the report. Note that sorting on totaled fields is given higher priority than grouped fields. This allows you to show, for example, sales by product with the biggest selling items first by using a descending sort on the sales amount field.

• Template: this specifies the overall layout of the report. The default template for a new report is determined by the Default template setting in the Options dialog, but if other templates are available, you may select the desired one from the drop-down list. Templates are created and edited using the Template Editor.

• Chart: if this option is turned on, you can add a chart to the report by clicking the Edit button beside this option and using the Chart Wizard.

• Edit: click this button, which is only enabled if the "Chart" option is turned on, to display the Chart Wizard. The only two steps available in the Chart Wizard are Chart Layout and Formatting Options because the rest of the steps in the Chart Wizard are used for creating stand-alone charts.

• Orientation: the default choice, "Automatic," means that if the report is too wide to fit in portrait orientation, it automatically switches to landscape. However, you can override this by choosing either "Portrait" or "Landscape" to force the report to be printed in the desired orientation.

• Left margin: how many characters to indent the entire report; this is handy if, for example, you want to print a report and punch holes in it so it can be inserted into a binder.

• Allow report to be filtered: turn this option on if someone can specify a filter for the report in the Reports Explorer. This should normally be turned on, but if you specify a filter in Step 3, you may wish to turn this off.

• Allow report to be sorted: turn this option on if someone can specify a sort order for the report in the Reports Explorer. If you group on any field, or specify a sort order in Step 4, you may want to turn this option off.
  

If you've been defined as an "advanced" user, three other options are available:

• Advanced layout: if this option is turned on, this report's layout can be edited in the Advanced Report Designer. When this is turned on, you can no longer add or remove fields using the items in Step 2; you must add or remove them using the Advanced Report Designer instead. If this option is turned off for a report that has an advanced layout, any advanced layout for the report is discarded (you are asked to verify that you want to do this).

• Use old report engine: the report engine in Stonefield Query is more powerful than that of earlier versions, but may have a side effect for advanced layout reports created in earlier versions of Stonefield Query: some fields, especially numeric fields, may need to be sized a little larger in order to fit the data; failure to do so causes these fields to show up as a row of asterisks (*****). To prevent this from happening, the Use old report engine setting is automatically turned on for these reports. However, once you've edited the report to increase the size of the affected fields, you can take advantage of the features of the new report engine by turning this setting off. With this setting turned on, the Run Report and Print Preview functions in the Advanced Report Designer are turned off, so that may be another reason to turn this on. Also, the Preview window appears more quickly, especially for very long reports, but the Preview window used when this is turned on has fewer features and some advanced options, such as dynamic formatting and rotation, aren't supported.

• Edit: click this button, which is only enabled if the "Advanced layout" option is turned on, to display the Advanced Report Designer.