Format fields

The Report Designer allows precise formatting and fine tuning of your Reports.

Format Fields

Font menu

Select any control and format it by clicking one of the Font menu options.

Select Font

Select control background color

Select font foreground color

Select font size

Select font weight

Select font alignment

Select from left, center, right or justified font alignment.

Alignment

To align various control select them and click an alignment option from the Alignment menu.

Hint: Move your mouse over the menu options to learn what each control does.

Layout

To adjust control layout settings, select two or more controls and click one of the layout option on the Layout menu.

Hint: Move your mouse over the menu options to learn what each control does.

Quick Format

Select the field control and select one of the options from the Format menu.

Of course, numeric formatting can only be applied to numeric fields and date format options only to date type fields.

When selecting a numeric or date field option the font alignment will be set to right.

More Formatting Options

You can access all formatting option for each control by selecting the control and editing its properties in the property box.

Borders

Set Borders

Select between top, right, bottom, left and all.

Border Width

Angle

Format Standard Control

Insert a Picture

Click the button in the Standard Controls box and drag it the position where you want the picture to appear.

Fine tune the picture settings in the property box.

Select an Image URL

You can assign any picture - bitmap from your system but if you view Reports through a web browser (Report Web Service) then it should be an URL pointing to an existing picture.

Assign a navigate URL; when the user clicks on the picture the web browser will open the assigned URL .

Define sizing options for the picture.

Add a line to a Report area

Click the button in the Standard Controls box and drag it the position where you want the line appear.

Select the line control and re-size and re-position it by dragging.

Define a Checkbox

Check boxes are used for Boolean values like True / False.

If you want a Boolean value to appear in a check box then insert it by dragging form the Standard Control box.

Set its data binding by clicking the .

Insert a Page Break

To insert a page break drag the page break control from the Standard Control panel to the area where you want to insert it.

Insert Page Information

DBxtra automatically inserts the date and page of control when you open the Report designer.

You can add additional page information by dragging the Page Info control to the Report area.

Note: usually page information goes into the Report header, page header, Report footer or page footer band.

Click the small, arrow on top of the control to edit the page info.

Select a page information option.

Rich Text Box

Rich text boxes show formatted text and also can contain pictures.

To insert a rich text box select the control and drag it to the Report area.

Insert a Shape

To insert a shape select the control and drag it to the Report area.

Right click the small arrow on top of the control.

Select the shape format and formatting options.

Insert a Barcode

To insert a Barcode select the control and drag it to the Report area.

Click the small arrow on top of the control.

You can select one of the most common bar codes symbols.

Assign the data binding for the control.

Here is an example of a barcode in a Report:

Cross Band Box and Cross Band Line

These controls allow you to design a box or line which will run over several bands.

To insert a cross band box or cross band line select the control and drag it to the Report area.