ActiveReports 11
Basic Data Bound Reports
ActiveReports 11 > ActiveReports User Guide > Samples and Walkthroughs > Walkthroughs > Section Report Walkthroughs > Data > Basic Data Bound Reports
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In ActiveReports, the simplest reporting style is a tabular listing of fields from a data source.

This walkthrough illustrates the basics of setting up bound reports by introducing the ideas of using the DataSource icon and dragging fields from the Report Explorer onto the report.

The walkthrough is split up into the following activities:

Note: This walkthrough uses the Northwind database. By default, in ActiveReports, the Northwind.mdb file is located at [User Documents folder]\GrapeCity Samples\ActiveReports 11\Data\NWIND.mdb.

When you complete this walkthrough you get a layout that looks similar to the following at design time and at run time.

Design-Time Layout

Run-Time Layout

To add an ActiveReport to the Visual Studio project

  1. Create a new Visual Studio project.
  2. From the Project menu, select Add New Item.
  3. In the Add New Item dialog that appears, select ActiveReports 11 Section Report (code-based) and in the Name field, rename the file as rptBound.
  4. Click the Add button to open a new section report in the designer.

See Adding an ActiveReport to a Project for information on adding different report layouts.

To connect the report to a data source

  1. On the detail section band, click the Data Source Icon.
  2. In the Report Data Source dialog that appears, on the OLE DB tab, next to Connection String, click the Build button.
  3. In the Data Link Properties window that appears, select Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider and click the Next button to move to the Connection tab.
  4. Click the ellipsis (...) button to browse to your database, for example the NWind.mdb sample database. Click Open once you have selected the appropriate database path.
  5. Click the Test Connection button to see if you have successfully connected to the database.
  6. Click OK to close the Data Link Properties window and return to the Report Data Source dialog. Notice that the Connection String field gets filled automatically.
  7. In the Query field on the OLE DB tab, enter the following SQL query.
    SQL Query
    Copy Code
    SELECT * FROM Products
  8. Click OK to save the data source and return to the report design surface.

To create a layout for the report

  1. In the Visual Studio toolbox, expand the ActiveReports 11 Section Report node and drag three TextBox controls onto the detail section and set the properties of each textbox as indicated:

    TextBox1

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField ProductName
    Text Product Name
    Location 0, 0in
    Size 2.3, 0.2in

    TextBox2

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField QuantityPerUnit
    Text Quantity
    Location 2.4, 0in
    Size 1.5, 0.2in

    TextBox3

    Property Name Property Value
    DataField UnitsInStock
    Text Stock
    Location 4, 0in
    Size 1, 0.2in
  2. Click just below the fields to select the Detail section, and in the Properties Window, set the CanShrink property to True to eliminate white space in the rendered report.

To view the report

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