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Besides previewing your report at design time, you can also view the reports you design in the Viewer. This viewer contains a toolbar and a sidebar with Thumbnails, Search results, Document map and Parameters panes.

Viewer Toolbar

The following table lists the actions you can perform through the Viewer toolbar.

Toolbar Element	Name	Description
	First page	Takes you to the first page of the report. This button is enabled when a page other than the first page is open.
	Last page	Takes you to the last page of the report. This button is disabled on reaching the last page of the report.
	Previous page	Takes you to the page prior to the current page. This button is enabled when a page other than the first page is open.
	Next page	Takes you to the page following the current page. This button is disabled on reaching the last page of the report.
	Current page	Opens a specific page in the report. To view a specific page, type the page number and press the Enter key.
	Backward	Takes you to the last viewed page. This button is enabled when you move to any page from the initial report page. Clicking this button for the first time also enables the Forward button.
	Forward	Takes you to last viewed page before you clicked the Backward button. This button is enabled once you click the Backward button.
	Back to parent report	Returns you to the parent report in a drillthrough report.
	Default	Allows you to specify a default mouse pointer mode.
	Pan mode	A hand symbol serves as the cursor that you can use to navigate.
	Selection mode	Allows you to select contents on the report. Click the Copy icon (see image and description below) to copy the selected content to the clipboard.
	Snapshot mode	Allows you to select content on the report that you can paste as an image into any application that accepts pasted images.
	Toggle sidebar	Displays the sidebar that includes the Thumbnails, Parameters, Document map and Search results panes.
	Print	Displays the Print dialog where you can specify the printing options.
	Galley mode	Provides a viewer mode which removes automatic page breaks from a Continuous Page Layout (CPL) and displays data in a single page. This mode maintains page breaks you create in the report and removes only automatic page breaks.
	Copy	Copies text that you select in the Selection mode to the clipboard. Note: In case the GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Xml.v8.dll and GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Word.v8.dll are not available in GAC, you might need to add references to these assembly files to enable the viewer's Copy button.
	Find	Displays the Find dialog to find any text in the report.
	Zoom out	Decreases the magnification of your report.
	Current zoom	Displays the current zoom percentage which can also be edited.
	Zoom in	Increases the magnification of your report.
	Fit width	Fits the width of the page according to viewer dimensions.
	Fit page	Fits the whole page within the current viewer dimensions.
	Single page view	Shows one page at a time in the viewer.
	Continuous view	Shows all preview pages one below the other.
	Multipage view	Offers you an option to select how many pages to preview in the viewer at one time.
	Refresh	Refreshes the report. Caution: Refresh button gets disabled when you load a section report in the Viewer control through any of the following: Document Property LoadDocument(SectionDocument) Method LoadDocument(String) Method
	Cancel	Cancels the report rendering.
	Touch Mode	Allows you to select touch mode for the Viewer. Note: The Touch Mode button only appears on the toolbar while working on touch enabled devices.

Viewer Sidebar

The Viewer sidebar appears on the left of the Viewer control when you click the Toggle sidebar button in the toolbar. By default, this sidebar shows the Thumbnails and Search Results panes. The additional Document map and Parameters also appear in this sidebar. You can toggle between any of the viewer panes by clicking the buttons for each pane at the bottom of the sidebar.

Thumbnails pane

The Thumbnails pane appears by default in the sidebar when you click the Toggle sidebar button in the toolbar.

This pane comprises of a thumbnail view of all the pages in a report. Click any thumbnail to navigate directly to the selected report page. You can also modify the size of the thumbnail when you click (+) or (-) button to zoom in and zoom out.

Search results pane

The Search pane is the other default pane besides Thumbnails that appears in the sidebar when you click the Toggle sidebar button. This pane lets you enter a word or phrase from which to search within the report.

To search in a report:

• Enter the word or phrase in the search field.
• Under Use these additional criteria, you may optionally choose to search for the whole word or match the case of the search string while searching in the report.
• Click the Search button to see the results appear in the Find results list.
• Click an item in the list to jump to that item in the report and highlight it.

To start a new search or clear the current search results, click the Clear button under the Find results list.

Document map pane

The Documents map pane is enabled for reports where the Label property or the Document map label is set. This pane displays each value for the text box, group, or sub report that you label, and you can click them to navigate to the corresponding area of the report in the Viewer.

If a report does not have the Label property or Document map label set, the Documents map pane does not appear in the sidebar.

Parameters pane

The Viewer allows you to view reports with parameters. In the toolbar, click the Toggle sidebar button to open the Viewer sidebar and if your report contains parameters, the Parameters pane shows up automatically.

1. In the Parameters pane, you are prompted to enter a value by which to filter the data to display.
2. Enter a value or set of values and click View report, to filter the report data and display the report.

If a report does not have parameters, the Parameters pane does not appear in the sidebar.

Display report output in the Viewer

The following code examples demonstrate how you can display the report output in the Viewer.

1. In a Visual Studio Windows Forms application, from the Visual Studio toolbox, drag the Viewer control onto your Windows Form.
2. Set the viewer's Dock property to Fill to show the complete Viewer control on the Form.
3. Double-click the title bar of the Form to create an event-handling method for the Form_Load event.
4. In the Form_Load event, add code like the following to run the report and display it in the viewer. Each of these code snippets presumes a report in the project of the type indicated with the default name. (If you have renamed your report, you need to rename it in the code as well)
   

   To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

   The following example demonstrates how you display a page report in the Viewer control.

   Visual Basic. NET code. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
   Dim file_name As String = "..\..\PageReport1.rdlx" Dim pageReport As New GrapeCity.ActiveReports.PageReport(New System.IO.FileInfo(file_name)) Dim pageDocument As New GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.PageDocument(pageReport) Viewer1.LoadDocument(pageDocument)

   The following example demonstrates how you can display a section report (code-based) in the Viewer control.

   Visual Basic. NET code. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
   Dim sectionReport As New SectionReport1() Viewer1.LoadDocument(sectionReport)

   The following example demonstrates how you can display a section report (xml-based) in the Viewer control.

   Visual Basic. NET code. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
   Dim sectionReport As New GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReport() Dim xtr As New System.Xml.XmlTextReader("..\..\SectionReport1.rpx") sectionReport.LoadLayout(xtr) xtr.Close() Viewer1.LoadDocument(sectionReport)

   To write the code in C#

   The following example demonstrates how you display a page report in the Viewer control.

   C# code. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
   string file_name = @"..\..\PageReport1.rdlx"; GrapeCity.ActiveReports.PageReport pageReport = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.PageReport(new System.IO.FileInfo(file_name)); GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.PageDocument pageDocument = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.PageDocument(pageReport); viewer1.LoadDocument(pageDocument);

   The following example demonstrates how you can display a section report (code-based) in the Viewer control.

   C# code. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event.	Copy Code
   SectionReport1 sectionReport = new SectionReport1(); viewer1.LoadDocument(sectionReport);

   The following example demonstrates how you can display a section report (xml-based) in the Viewer control.

   C# code. Paste INSIDE the Form_Load event	Copy Code
   GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReport sectionReport = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.SectionReport(); System.Xml.XmlTextReader xtr = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(@"..\..\SectionReport1.rpx"); sectionReport.LoadLayout(xtr); xtr.Close(); viewer1.LoadDocument(sectionReport);

Additional Features

Following is an introduction to the additional capabilities of the Viewer to guide you on using it effectively:

Split windows

Advanced Printing

Exporting

Use the Export Filters to export a page or a section report to different formats directly from the Viewer. After you load the document in the Viewer, you can use a sample code like the following which shows one overload of the Export method with a PDF export filter. This code creates an outputPDF.pdf file in the bin\debug folder of your project.

To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

Visual Basic. NET code. Paste INSIDE an event like Button_Click event.	Copy Code
Dim PDFEx As New GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport Viewer1.Export(PDFEx, New FileInfo(Application.StartupPath + "\outputPDF.pdf"))

To write the code in C#

C# code. Paste INSIDE an event like Button_Click event.	Copy Code
GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport PDFEx = new GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Pdf.Section.PdfExport(); viewer1.Export(PDFEx, new System.IO.FileInfo (Application.StartupPath + "\\outputPDF.pdf" ));

Note: Make sure that you add a reference to the required export assembly in your project before setting the export filter in code. See Export Filters further details.

Annotations Toolbar

Keyboard Shortcuts

Viewer's Thumbnails pane shortcut keys

Touch Support

ActiveReports introduces touch support for Windows Viewer. This feature gives you the flexibility to interact with the Viewer using simple touch gestures. Now you can install ActiveReports on any touch enabled Windows device and view the reports anywhere you are.

You can switch to the touch mode by just clicking the Touch mode button on the Viewer toolbar.

Note: In touch mode, you can still use the mouse to perform ActiveReports operations.

Touch mode Toolbar

The following table lists the actions you can perform through the Viewer toolbar.

Icon	Function	Details
	Sidebar	Displays the sidebar that includes the Thumbnails, Parameters, Document map and Search results panes.
	Print	Displays the Print dialog where you can specify the printing options.
	Galley mode	Provides a viewer mode which removes automatic page breaks from a Continuous Page Layout (CPL) and displays data in a single page. This mode maintains page breaks you create in the report and removes only automatic page breaks. For CPL report only.
	Copy	Copies text that you select in the Selection mode to the clipboard. Note: In case the GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Xml.v8.dll and GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Export.Word.v8.dll are not available in GAC, you might need to add references to these assembly files to enable the viewer's Copy button.
	Find	Displays the Find dialog to find any text in the report.
	Current zoom	Displays the current zoom percentage which can also be edited.
	Single page view	Shows one page at a time in the viewer.
	Continuous page	Shows all preview pages one below the other.
	Multiple page	Offers you an option to select how many pages to preview in the viewer at one time.
	Previous page	Takes you to the page prior to the current page. This button is enabled when a page other than the first page is open.
	Current page	Opens a specific page in the report. To view a specific page, type the page number and press the Enter key.
	Next page	Takes you to the page following the current page. This button is disabled on reaching the last page of the report.
	Back to parent report	Returns you to the parent report in a drillthrough report.
	Refresh	Refreshes the Viewer. Caution: Refresh button gets disabled when you load a section report in the Viewer control through any of the following: Document Property LoadDocument(SectionDocument) Method LoadDocument(String) Method
	Cancel	Cancels the report rendering.
	Touch mode	Allows you to select touch mode for the Viewer.

Context menu

To display the context menu, you must tap and hold in the preview area.

Icon	Function	Gesture	Details
	Pan mode	Tap	Hand cursor used to move the visible portion of the reports. Drag the hand tool in the direction you want to move the report.
	Selection mode	Tap	Allows you to select contents on the report. Click the Copy icon (see image and description above) to copy the selected content to the clipboard.
	Snapshot mode	Tap	Allows you to select content on the report that you can paste as an image into any application that accepts pasted images.

Preview

Gesture	Gesture (Image)	Preview Area Element	Details
Flick		Single Page View	Flick in the vertical or horizontal direction moves to the next or previous page. A single flick moves single page.
		Continuous Page View	Performs the page scrolling.
Tap		Link	Opens links (URL, drill-though links, etc).
Pan		Slider	Moves the slider.
		Border between Sidebar and Preview Area	Moves the border. Note: The pan gesture does not work in the report area where ScrollbarEnabled property is set to False.
		Selection mode, Snapshot mode	Pan from selection start point to selection end point.
Pinch		Preview Area	Pinch to zoom out.
Stretch		Preview Area	Stretch to zoom in.
Double tap		Preview Area	Tap twice to change the view mode (from the Single page view to the Multiple page mode).
Tap and hold		Selection mode, Snapshot mode	Displays the context menu where you can select the pan, selection, or snapshot mode.