The report generated for you by the wizard is a good starting point, but you will usually need to adjust and enhance it to get exactly what you want. You can do this with the Designer.
To start using the designer, click the Design button on the View toolbar or in the View menu, select Design. The right pane of the main window will switch from Review mode into Design mode, and it will show the controls and fields that make up the report:
The picture shows how the report is divided into sections (Header, Page Header, etc). The sections contain fields that hold the labels, variables, and expressions that you want in the printed report. In our example, the Header section contains a label with the report title. The Page Header section contains labels that identify the fields in the Detail section, and the Page Footer section contains fields that show the current time, the page number and the total page count for the report.
The sections of the report determine what each page, group, the beginning, and end of the report look like. The table below describes where each section appears in the report and what it is typically used for.
|
Section |
Appears |
Typically Contains |
|
Report header |
Once per report |
The report title and summary information for the whole report. Page header Once per page Labels that describe detail fields and/or page numbers. |
|
Group header |
Once per group |
Fields that identify the current group and possibly aggregate values for the group (for example: total, percentage of the grand total). |
|
Detail |
Once per record |
Fields containing data from the source recordset. |
|
Group footer |
Once per group |
Aggregate values for the group. |
|
Page footer |
Once per page |
Page number, page count, date printed, report name. |
|
Report footer |
Once per report |
Summary information for the whole report. |
Note that you cannot add and delete sections directly. The number of groups determines the number of sections in a report. Every report has exactly five fixed sections (Report Header/Footer, Page Header/Footer, and Detail) plus two sections per group (a Header and a Footer). You can hide sections that you do not want to display by setting their Visible property to False.
To enhance your report, you can add lines, rectangles, and pictures to any section. You can also modify the existing fields and sections by changing their properties with the Property Window, or move and resize them with the mouse.
To resize a section, drag its border to the position where you want it. The rulers on the left and on top of the design window show the size of each section (excluding the page margins). Note that you cannot make the section smaller than the height and width required to contain the fields in it. To reduce the size of a section beyond that, move or resize the fields in it first, then resize the section.
To see how this works, move the mouse to the area between the bottom of the Page Header section and the gray bar on top of the Detail section. The mouse cursor will change to show that you are over the resizing area. Click the mouse and drag the line down until the section is about twice its original height. Release the button and the section will be resized.
Next, click the mouse close to the bottom left corner of the Page Header section, and drag it to the top right corner. You will see a selection rectangle that should cover or touch all fields in the section. Release the mouse button and all fields will be selected.Now drag the entire selection down until it touches the bottom of the section, and release the button. You have just moved the fields and opened up a little more room on the page header section.
The Designer allows you to use the mouse in a way that should be familiar. You can shift-click fields to toggle their selection status, control-drag to copy, click on the corners to resize and so on. You can also use the tab key to move the selection to the next field (which is handy when fields are close together), the arrow keys to move the selected fields and the DEL key to delete the selected fields.
When multiple fields are selected, you can use the buttons on the Format toolbar to align, resize, and space them.
If you make any mistakes while moving or editing the fields, use the Undo/Redo buttons on the main toolbar to fix the report.
You can control the design grid using the Show Grid and Snap To Grid buttons on the design toolbar. You can also select the grid units using Options in the View menu.