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A Sharp
Report, Part 1: October 2003 ACT! Certified Consultant |
In ACT!, reports are the way you get the information you see on the computer screen onto paper. Reports allow you to print information about one Contact, all Contacts, or a specific lookup. Reports exist that will summarize Notes, Histories, and Activities, and print simple lists. Reports about your Groups are also available. ACT! provides you with a nice selection of “default” reports. If you haven’t taken the time to get to know the existing reports, I recommend exploring them. You may find that the existing reports suit all of your needs. The more you customize your database, however, the more likely it is you’ll want to customize your reports as well. For example, consider what happens in the following scenarios:
But how do you get a report to look the way you want? How do you add a new field? How do you make the field names fit? Easy! (No… really, it is!) Create your own Report Template. What is a Report Template? Report Templates contain no data. They are just the definition of the report, not the report itself. When you generate a report from ACT!, the report content is created “on the fly.” The data is read directly from the current set of Contact or Group records and placed on the page. Because of this, any new report is always up-to-date. In order for this “just in time” generation to work, something must tell the database exactly how you want the data arranged on the page. That something is called a Report Template. Report Templates tell ACT! how large the page is, the size of the margins, what to place at the top or bottom of all report pages, what field data to print and where to print it, what font to use when printing the data, how to sort the report, and much more. But no data is actually collected until you run the report. If you want to create a custom report, or customize an existing one, you’re going to need to know how to create and edit Report Templates. Creating a New Report Template Perhaps the quickest way of getting to the report you want is to find an existing template that’s close to your desired result and modify it to suit you needs. But I’ve never been one to take the paved road when I have a choice, and modifying existing templates won’t necessarily teach you how the Report Designer works. So, I’m going to show you how to create a new Report Template from scratch. Create a New Report Choose File | New… from the ACT! menu, select Report Template, and click OK. A new Report Template is displayed on your screen (don’t be afraid, its bark is worse than its bite). The new template is divided into three basic sections. Each section’s name is displayed in a section title at the bottom left of the section itself (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Each section has a specific purpose in the overall design of the report:
Each section is a literal representation of the amount of paper the section will use. For example, if the Header section is 1" high (which it is by default), then 1" of the top of every printed page will be used to display the contents of the Header section. The Contact section is a bit tricky, in that it will take up the specified amount of space for each contact that will fit on the page. For example, if the Contact section is 0.5" high, it will use 0.5 vertical inch for each contact, as many times as it can given the size of the paper and the size of the header and footer (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. The actual width of the paper (minus the margins) is represented by the white area of the Report Template. A new template assumes that your paper is 8.5" wide and that the left and right margins are 0.25". This leaves 8" of width, which you can see is the width that the designer displays. There are several other types of sections, but I’ll save them for Part 2 of this tutorial. The Report Designer The Report Designer window, menu, and toolbars provide all the tools you’ll need to create or modify your templates. Let’s look at what you have to work with.
If the Tool Palette, rulers, grid, or section titles are displayed, but you don’t want them to be, you’ll find options to hide them in the View menu. Mastering the Tool Palette The Tool Palette (see Figure 3) is the source of all items you add to your Report Template. It can also be used to format the objects after you’ve added them. When you click a button on the Tool Palette, it appears to be “pressed.” Once you click a Tool Palette button, the Report Designer will perform the task defined by that button until you click another one. Get in the habit of checking which button is “pressed,” as that determines what will happen when you click or drag your mouse. The button on the top left of the palette is the Select button. Unless you’re adding a field, label, or the like, make sure the Select button is pressed. If it isn’t, click it before you try to select or manipulate existing objects.
Figure 3. Adding Controls to Sections The buttons on the top half of the Tool Palette are “object buttons” — that is, they are used to add various objects to your report template. Add an Object to the Template Section
Figure 4. Most objects will simply be displayed where you drew them. When you draw a Field object, however, the Report Designer will display the Field List dialog box (see Figure 5). Select the field you wish to use from the list and click Add. You can insert multiple fields without closing the dialog box. The designer will “stack” them below your original object. If you want the field name to be displayed as a label, make sure the Add field label checkbox is checked.
Figure 5. Don’t worry if the object you just drew isn’t exactly the size or shape you wanted; you can always move and resize it. Before you can move or resize anything, however, you must select it. Select an Object
An object is selected when “handles” are displayed around that object. Handles are also used in sizing objects (see Figure 6). Some objects will have four handles, and some will have two. The number and position of the handles indicates how the object may be sized. An object with two handles can be sized horizontally only, while an object with four handles can be sized both horizontally and vertically (Figure 6 shows both types of handles).
Figure 6. Move an Object
Figure 7. You can move items from one section to another. |
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