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ActiveReports allows you to overlay static report formats over data reports. This walkthrough illustrates how to overlay an ActiveReport with a static letterhead report.

This walkthrough is split up into the following activities:

• Connecting the data report to a data source
• Adding controls to the letterhead and data reports
• Adding code to overlay the data report pages with the letterhead report

Tip: For basic steps like adding a report to a Visual Studio project and viewing a report, please see the Basic Data Bound Reports walkthrough.

To complete the walkthrough, you must have access to the Northwind database.
A copy is located at C:\Program Files\GrapeCity\ActiveReports 6\Data\NWIND.MDB (on a 64-bit Windows operating system, a copy is located in C:\Program Files (x86)\GrapeCity\ActiveReports 6\Data\NWIND.MDB).

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

To connect rptData to a data source

1. Add two reports to a Visual Studio project, naming them rptLetterhead and rptData.
2. Click the gray report DataSource icon on the Detail section band to open the Report Data Source dialog.
   
3. On the OLE DB tab, next to Connection String, click the Build button.
4. In the Data Link Properties window that appears, select Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider and click the Next button.
5. Click the ellipsis (...) button to browse to the Northwind database. Click Open once you have selected the appropriate access path.
6. Click OK to close the window and fill in the Connection String field.
7. In the Query field, enter the following SQL query

   SQL Query	Copy Code
   SELECT * FROM Customers ORDER BY Country

8. Click OK to save the data source and return to the report design surface.

To add controls to rptData

1. Select the PageHeader section, and in the Properties Window, set the Height property to 0.65. (This will match the height of the page header in the template.)
2. Right-click the report and select Insert > GroupHeader/Footer to add group header and group footer sections.
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
   • Change the GroupKeepTogether property to FirstDetail
   • Change the KeepTogether property to True
4. Add the following controls to ghCustomers with properties set as indicated:

   Group header labels

   Control	Miscellaneous	Text (or DataField)	Size	Location
   TextBox	Bold ForeColor = White Font Size = 12	="Customers in " + Country (DataField)	2, 0.2 in	0, 0 in
   Label	Bold ForeColor = DarkSlateBlue	ID	0.6, 0.198 in	0, 0.2 in
   Label	Bold ForeColor = DarkSlateBlue	Company Name	1.1, 0.198 in	0.7, 0.2 in
   Label	Bold ForeColor = DarkSlateBlue	Address	1, 0.198 in	2.7, 0.2 in
   Label	Bold ForeColor = DarkSlateBlue	City	1, 0.198 in	5.5, 0.2 in

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 properties of each textbox as indicated.

   Detail fields

   Field	Size	Location
   CustomerID	0.6, 0.2 in	0, 0 in
   CompanyName	2, 0.2 in	0.7, 0 in
   Address	2.8, 0.2 in	2.7, 0 in
   City	1, 0.2 in	5.5, 0 in

7. Change the group footer's Height property to 0.

To add static controls to rptLetterhead

1. Make the following changes to the page header:
   • Change the BackColor property to DarkSlateBlue
   • Change the Height property to 0.65
2. Add the following controls to the page header with properties set as indicated:

   Page header labels

   Control	Miscellaneous	Size	Location
   Label	Size = 36 Style = Bold ForeColor = White Text = GrapeCity	3.7, 0.65 in	0, 0 in
   Picture	PictureAlignment = TopLeft Image (click ellipsis, navigate to C:\Program Files\GrapeCity\ActiveReports 6\Introduction (on a 64-bit Windows operating system, navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\GrapeCity\ActiveReports 6\Introduction) and select itopimage1.gif)	3, 0.65 in	3.5, 0 in

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

   Page footer label

   Miscellaneous	ForeColor	Text	Size	Location
   Alignment = Center Style = Bold	White	(919) 460-4551, http://www.grapecity.com, powersales@grapecity.com	6.5, 0.2 in	0, 0 in

Adding code to overlay the data report pages with the letterhead report

To write the code in Visual Basic.NET

   Dim rpt As New rptData()
   rpt.Run()
   Viewer1.Document = rpt.Document      
   Dim rpt2 As New rptLetterhead()
   rpt2.Run()
   Dim i As Integer
   For i = 0 To rpt.Document.Pages.Count - 1
      rpt.Document.Pages(i).Overlay(rpt2.Document.Pages(0))
   Next

To write the code in C#

   rptData rpt = new rptData();
   rpt.Run();
   viewer1.Document = rpt.Document;
   rptLetterhead rpt2 = new rptLetterhead();
   rpt2.Run();
   for(int i = 0; i < rpt.Document.Pages.Count; i++)
   {
      rpt.Document.Pages[i].Overlay(rpt2.Document.Pages[0]);
   }