ActiveReports allows you to apply a page template to an existing report by using the Overlay method.

This walkthrough illustrates how to overlay an ActiveReport with a "letterhead" page template.

This walkthrough is split up into the following activities:

• Adding two ActiveReports to a Visual Studio project
• Connecting the report to a data source
• Adding controls to both reports
• Adding code to the Windows Form Load event to set the viewer document equal to the report document and to overlay the report pages with the "letterhead" template
• Viewing the report 

To complete the walkthrough, you must have access to the Northwind database.
A copy is located at C:\Program Files\Data Dynamics\ActiveReports for .NET 3.0\Data\NWIND.MDB.

When you have completed this walkthrough, you will have a report that looks similar to the following.

Adding two ActiveReports to a Visual Studio project

To add two ActiveReports to a Visual Studio project

1. Open a new project in Visual Studio.
2. From the Project menu, select Add New Item.
3. Select ActiveReports 3.0 File and rename the file rptReport.
4. Click Open.
5. From the Project menu, select Add New Item.
6. Select ActiveReports 3.0 File and rename the file rptTemplate.
7. Click Open.

Connecting the main report to a data source

To connect rptReport to a data source

1. Click on the gray report DataSource icon in the Detail section of rptReport to open the report DataSource dialog.
2. Select the "OLE DB" tab. 
3. Click the Build button.
4. Select Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider and click Next.
5. Click the ellipsis button to browse for the access path to the Northwind database. Click Open once you have selected the appropriate access path.
6. Click OK to continue.
7. In the Query field, type "Select * from customers order by country".
8. Click OK to return to the report design surface.

Adding controls to display the data

To add controls to rptReport

1. Select the page header section, and set the Height property to 0.4. (This will match the height of the page header in the template.)
2. Add a GroupHeader/Footer section by right-clicking the report and selecting Insert > GroupHeader/Footer.
3. Make the following changes to the group header:
   • Change the Name property to ghCustomers
   • Change the BackColor property to MediumSlateBlue
   • Change the CanShrink property to True
   • Change the DataField property to Country
4. Add labels with the following properties to ghCustomers:

   Font Style	Name	Text	Section	Location
   Bold	lblCustomerID	Customer ID	GroupHeader	0, 0
   Bold	lblCompanyName	Company Name	GroupHeader	0.94, 0
   Bold	lblAddress	Address	GroupHeader	2.44, 0
   Bold	lblCity	City	GroupHeader	4.63, 0
   Bold	lblCountry	Country	GroupHeader	5.69, 0

5. Make the following changes to the detail section:
   • Change the BackColor property to LightGray
   • Change the CanShrink property to True
6. In the Report Explorer, expand the Fields node, then the Bound node. Drag the following fields onto the detail section and set the following properties of each textbox as indicated.

   Field	Text	Size	Location
   CustomerID	Customer ID	0.88, 0.19	0, 0
   CompanyName	CompanyName	1.44, 0.19	0.94, 0
   Address	Address	2.13, 0.19	2.44, 0
   City	City	1, 0.19	4.63, 0
   Country	Country	0.8, 0.19	5.69, 0

To add controls to rptTemplate

1. Make the following changes to the page header:
   • Change the BackColor property to DarkSlateBlue
   • Change the Height property to 0.4
2. Add labels with the following properties to the page header:

   Font	Name	Text	ForeColor	Location
   Size = 18 Style=Bold	lblCompanyName	Company Name	White	0, 0
   Size = 16 Style=Bold	lblCompanyLogo	(Company Logo)	White	4.69, 0

3. Make the following changes to the page header:
   • Change the BackColor property to DarkSlateBlue
4. Add a label with the following properties to the page footer:

   Miscellaneous	Name	Text	ForeColor	Location
   Alignment = Center Style = Bold Size = 6.5, 0.2	lblCompanyInfo	Company Address, Phone Number, Fax Number, URL	White	0, 0

Adding code to the Windows Form Load event

To write the code in Visual Basic or C#

• Add the ActiveReports viewer control to the Windows Form. Then, double-click the top of the Windows Form to create an event-handling method for the form's Load event. Add code to the handler to:
  • Set the viewer document equal to the rptReport report document
  • Apply the "letterhead" template page to rptReport by using the Overlay() method

  The following example shows what the code for the Overlay() method looks like.

  ' Visual Basic
  Private Sub myForm_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles _
     MyBase.Load
     Dim rpt As New rptReport()
     rpt.Run()
     Viewer1.Document = rpt.Document	
     Dim rpt2 As New rptTemplate()
     rpt2.Run()
     For i = 0 To rpt.Document.Pages.Count - 1
        rpt.Document.Pages(i).Overlay(rpt2.Document.Pages(0))
     Next
   End Sub
   				
   //C#
   private void myForm_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
   {
     rptReport rpt = new rptReport();
     rpt.Run();
     viewer1.Document = rpt.Document;
     rptTemplate rpt2 = new rptTemplate();
     rpt2.Run();
     for(int i = 0; i < rpt.Document.Pages.Count; i++)
     {
        rpt.Document.Pages[i].Overlay(rpt2.Document.Pages[0]);
     }
   }

Viewing the report

To view the report

• Press F5 to run the project and view the report.

See Also

 

 

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