Alison Balteramp;#039;s Mastering Microsoft Office Access 1002003 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Working with the Report Design Window

You use the Report Design window to build and modify a report. Using this window, you can add objects to a report and modify their properties. Microsoft provides numerous Report, Report Grouping, and Control properties. By modifying these properties, you can create reports with diverse looks and functionality.

Understanding the Report Design Tools

To help you design reports, several report design tools are available, including the Properties, Toolbox, Field List, and Sorting and Grouping windows. Two toolbars are also available to make developing and customizing your reports easier: the Report Design toolbar and the Formatting toolbar. The Report Design toolbar offers tools for saving, previewing, and printing your report and for cutting, copying, and pasting report objects. The Formatting toolbar is specifically designed to help you customize the look of your report. It includes tools for changing the font, font size, alignment, color, shading, and other physical attributes of the report objects.

The Properties, Toolbox, Field List, and Sorting and Grouping windows are all designed as toggles. This means that buttons on the Report Design toolbar alternately hide and show these valuable windows. If you have a high-resolution monitor, you might want to leave the windows open at all times. If you have a low-resolution monitor, you need to get a feel for when it's most effective for each window to be opened or closed.

Adding Fields to the Report

You can most easily add fields to a report by using the Field List window. With the Field List window open, click and drag a field from the field list onto the appropriate section of the report. You can add several fields at one time, just as you can in forms. Use the Ctrl key to select noncontiguous fields, use the Shift key to select contiguous fields, or double-click the field list's title bar to select all the fields; then click and drag them to the report as a unit.

CAUTION

One problem with adding fields to a report is that both the fields and the attached labels are placed in the same section of the report. This means that, if you click and drag fields from the Field List window to the Detail section of the report, both the fields and the attached labels appear in the Detail section. If you're creating a tabular report, this isn't acceptable, so you must cut the attached labels and paste them into the report's Page Header section.

Selecting, Moving, Aligning, and Sizing Report Objects

Microsoft Access offers several techniques to help you select, move, align, and size report objects. Different techniques are effective in different situations. Experience will tell you which technique you should use and when. The steps for selecting, moving, aligning, and sizing report objects are quite similar to performing the same tasks with form objects. The techniques are covered briefly in this chapter; for a more detailed explanation of each technique, refer to Chapter 5, "What Every Developer Needs to Know About Forms."

Selecting Report Objects

To select a single report object, click it; selection handles appear around the selected object. After you select the object, you can modify any of its attributes (properties), or you can size, move, or align it.

To select multiple objects so that you can manipulate them as a unit, use one of the following techniques:

• Hold down the Shift key as you click multiple objects. Each object you click is then added to the selection.

• Place your mouse pointer in a blank area of the report. Click and drag to lasso the objects you want to select. When you let go of the mouse, any object even partially within the lasso is selected.

• Click and drag within the horizontal or vertical ruler. As you click and drag, lines appear indicating the potential selection area. When you release the mouse, all objects within the lines are selected.

Make sure you understand which objects are actually selected; attached labels can cause some confusion. Figure 6.12 shows a report with four objects selected: the rptClientInformation label, the Contact First Name label, the ContactLastName text box, and the ContactTitle text box. The Contact Last Name and Contact Title labels are

not selected. If you were to modify the properties of the selected objects, the Contact Last Name and Contact Title labels would be unaffected.

Moving Things Around

If you want to move a single control along with its attached label, click the object and drag it to a new location. The object and the attached label move as a unit. To move multiple objects, use one of the methods explained in the previous section to select the objects you want to move. After you select the objects, click and drag any of them; the selected objects and their attached labels move as a unit.

Moving an object without its attached label is a trickier process. When placed over the center or border of a selected object (not on a sizing handle), the mouse pointer looks like a hand with all five fingers pointing upward. This indicates that the selected object and its attached label move as a unit, maintaining their relationship to one another. However, if you place your mouse pointer directly over the selection handle in the object's upper-left corner, the mouse pointer looks like a hand with the index finger pointing upward. This indicates that the object and the attached label move independently of one another so that you can alter the distance between them.

Aligning Objects with One Another

To align objects with one another, you must select them first. Choose Format, Align; then select Left, Right, Top, Bottom, or To Grid. The selected objects will align in relation to each other.

CAUTION

Watch out for a few "gotchas" when you're aligning report objects: If you select several text boxes and their attached labels and align them, Access tries to align the left sides of the text boxes with the left sides of the labels. To avoid this problem, you have to align the text boxes separately from their attached labels.

During the alignment process, Access never overlaps objects. For this reason, if the objects you're aligning don't fit, Access can't align them. For example, if you try to align the bottom of several objects horizontally and they don't fit across the report, Access aligns only the objects that fit on the line.

Using Snap to Grid

The Snap to Grid feature is a toggle found under the Format menu. When you select Snap to Grid, all objects that you're moving or sizing snap to the report's gridlines. To temporarily disable the Snap to Grid feature, hold down your Ctrl key while sizing or moving an object.

Using Power-Sizing Techniques

Access offers many techniques to help you size report objects. A selected object has eight sizing handles, and you can use all of them, except for the upper-left handle, to size the object. Using the upper-left handle moves the object independent of an object it is attached to (that is, it moves an attached label independent of the text box it is attached to). Simply click and drag one of the sizing handles. If you select multiple objects, Access sizes them by the same amount.Chapter 5.

TIP

Access offers a great trick that can help size labels to fit. Simply double-click any sizing handle, and the object is automatically sized to fit the text within it.

Controlling Object Spacing

Access also makes it easy for you to control object spacing. You can make both the horizontal and vertical distances between selected objects equal. Select the objects; then choose Format, Horizontal Spacing, Make Equal or Format, Vertical Spacing, Make Equal. You can also maintain the relative relationship between selected objects while increasing or decreasing the space between them. To do this, choose Format, Horizontal Spacing, Increase/Decrease or Format, Vertical Spacing, Increase/Decrease.