A Sharp Report, Part 2:  Sections

November 2003

Scott Holmes
ACT! Certified Consultant
Cornerstone Solutions, Inc.

Continued...

Section Options

At the bottom of the Add Section dialog box, you’ll find options that can be applied to any section in the report (well, almost any section).

1. Page break before each section — This causes a new page to start every time a section repeats. If we applied this option to our Summary sorted by City, each city would start on a new page.

2. Allow section to break across multiple pages — If the content of the section starts near the bottom of a page and continues onto the next, unchecking this option will cause the section to start on the next page in total. A section that’s too big to fit on a single page won’t be affected by this setting. Don’t hang your hopes on this option; I have yet to get it to work as I’d expect.

3. Collapse blank lines — If there’s no data in the row (the row is defined by the horizontal grid lines), the line will be closed up instead of showing blank space (see Figure 9).

4. Collapse blank section — If the section contains no data, the space will be closed up instead of showing blank space. If you “drill down” into your data by stacking Summary sections, you’ll probably need this.

Figure 9. Collapse black lines.

To change the attributes for an existing section, follow these steps:

1. Display the Report Template in the report editor if necessary.

2. Choose Edit | Define Sections, or right-click on the report and choose Define Sections.

3. Select the section that you want to modify.

4. Click Change.

5. Change the attributes as desired and click OK.

Sections add a lot of flexibility to your reports. While they can be difficult to understand initially, the end result is worth the potential headaches of mastering them.

Field Properties

There are some special properties of the report fields themselves that you’ll find very useful when you need them.

Close up blank space

When you place one field next to another in a report, the data in each field will print as if it were in its own separate column. This works fine for a simple columnar list, but sometimes you want the data to be closer together — for example, if you wish to combine City, State, and Zip Code so it all fits in a single column. Since city names have many different lengths, you can’t just adjust the field width and proximity; shorter names will still be too far away from the state, and longer city names will be truncated. When you change the property of a field to Close up blank space, the field immediately to its right will be “pulled” toward the first field based on the amount of space between the end of the text in the first field and the start of the field to the right. This affects only one field at a time, so you can terminate the effect when you wish (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. Close up blank space.

Wrap text

When the content of a field is longer than the width of its text box, ACT! will truncate the data. You could make the box larger and taller, but if you do, it’s your best guess as to how much space is needed for the longest entry. If that’s the way you want to go... well, good luck with that. The rest of us will use the Wrap text property. When you turn Wrap text on, the field can grow vertically as necessary to accommodate the text in the field (see Figure 11).

Figure 11. Wrap text.

Don’t print if duplicated

On some report layouts, you may want a nice, neat, columnar layout. When one of your columns contains data by which the report is sorted, you get an entire column of the same thing. Turning on the Don’t print if duplicated property for this field will cause a field to print only once and then skip rows until its content changes (see Figure 12).

Figure 12. Don't print if duplicated.

Arrangement Tools

It’s easy to add controls to your report; it’s less easy to make them look good. Arranging fields so they’re aligned with each other can be a challenge, and making fields the same size as others can be even more challenging. Fortunately, the ACT! report designer provides tools to make this task easier.

To align controls with each other, follow these steps:

1. Select the controls you wish to align (click on the first control, and then hold the Shift key and click on the additional controls).

2. Make sure you have the appropriate control designated as the primary control. (The primary control is the one with the clear handles around it. Any command performed on multiple controls will “key” off of this control.) Clicking on a previously selected control (without the Shift key) will make it the primary object.

3. Choose Objects | Align from the menu. The Align dialog box will display (see Figure 13).

4. Select the alignment option you wish to apply, and click OK. The objects will now be lined up according to your instructions.

Figure 13. The Align dialog box.

You might notice that the “top to bottom” options aren’t available to you when editing reports. The horizontal (top to bottom) alignment is pretty much controlled by the horizontal grid on the design screen.

To make controls the same size, do the following:

1. Select the controls you wish to align (click on the first control, and then hold the Shift key down and click on the additional controls).

2. Make sure you have the appropriate control designated as the primary control. (The primary control will determine the change in size of the remaining selected controls.)

3. Choose Objects | Make same Width or Objects | Make same Height (or both in sequence), and all selected objects will be resized to the same size as the primary.

<<<Previous Page | Next Page >>>

© Copyright 2003 Buzz Publishing. All rights reserved. Contact web person