Report Design

Quick reference

• 00:04 In this lesson, we're going to take a look at a slightly more complex report.
• 00:07 And we're also going to talk about report design.
• 00:11 Now, in the last lesson, we built our first report,
• 00:14 a very basic list of all the companies using the Report Wizard.
• 00:18 Now what I've done this time is I've used the Report Design option.
• 00:24 So if you go to the Create tab in the Reports group, this is the option I used,
• 00:28 Report Design.
• 00:30 And this basically works very similar to Form Design.
• 00:33 So if you understand how that works,
• 00:35 you're going to understand how to put together a custom report.
• 00:40 And all I've basically done here is,
• 00:42 I've added fields from different tables to build up this new report.
• 00:47 So, if we go to Report Design and click on Add Existing Fields,
• 00:50 I've used a mixture of fields from different tables.
• 00:54 And I've arranged them in the way that I want this report to appear on the page.
• 00:59 Now the final thing I'm going to do here is just drag the end of the report in.
• 01:02 So if we now take a look at this report in Report View, you can see how that looks.
• 01:08 I can scroll through and I can see all of my different records.
• 01:11 We have the Customer Name, the Status, the Ticket Number, the Company, and
• 01:14 the Description.
• 01:15 And notice that, where the records repeat the customer name,
• 01:18 it's because they have different statuses assigned.
• 01:21 So that is really how you can very easily create your own more complex reports.
• 01:26 The only thing left to do here is save our report, so, let's click on the cross.
• 01:30 Let's say Yes to Save.
• 01:31 I'm going to call this rptTicketDetailReport.
• 01:38 And click on OK.
• 01:40 So now we're going to use this report.
• 01:41 I'm going to walk you through some of the design choices that you can make.
• 01:45 And when we talk about design, we're really talking about the look and
• 01:49 feel of our form.
• 01:50 Because, currently, if we reopen it, it looks pretty nice, but
• 01:54 it is a little bit boring.
• 01:55 And we can definitely improve this design.
• 01:58 Now, when it comes to report design the options are virtually unlimited.
• 02:02 We can customize every single element on our reports.
• 02:06 From the fields, to the labels, to the headings and the page footer and header.
• 02:12 So it really depends how you want your report to look.
• 02:14 But let's take a look at a few options that we have,
• 02:16 so you know where you're going in the Property Sheet.
• 02:19 So let's switch into Design View for this report.
• 02:24 And we're going to open up the Property Sheet.
• 02:27 Now, remember, here, it's very important where you're actually clicked on your
• 02:31 report when it comes to formatting.
• 02:33 So, currently, if I click in this report header area.
• 02:37 If we take a look at our Property Sheet, you can see that, Yes,
• 02:40 the header is visible.
• 02:41 I can see the height I can make modifications there.
• 02:44 And the back color is set to Text 2, Lighter 80%.
• 02:48 Now, Text 2, Lighter 80% is this kind of gray blue color.
• 02:53 And this is coming from the theme colors that are currently in use in Access.
• 02:59 So, if I jump across to the Report Design tab and take a look at the theme that I'm
• 03:03 using, it's basically this one here, the Office theme.
• 03:07 And this light blue color that you can see in this office theme is called Text 2,
• 03:13 Lighter 80%.
• 03:14 If I hover my mouse over some of these other themes, you can see a preview as to
• 03:19 how applying any of those is going to change the report.
• 03:23 And this is probably the quickest thing to do if you want to change the colors in use
• 03:28 in your report, the font that you're using, and also any effects.
• 03:32 So, if I select something like Ion Boardroom,
• 03:35 and take a look at my form, because this theme uses different fonts,
• 03:40 this font is slightly bigger than the font in the theme I was originally using.
• 03:45 So, it might be that when you change to a different theme, you have to go in and
• 03:49 start rejigging these around so that everything fits into these fields.
• 03:54 Now, another thing to notice is that even though we've changed the theme and
• 03:58 we now have this purple color in the header area,
• 04:00 take a look at the background color in the Property Sheet.
• 04:03 It still says Text 2, Lighter 80%, and
• 04:06 that is because this applies to every single theme.
• 04:10 Each iteration of a color scheme within a theme is called exactly the same thing.
• 04:16 And that is the reason why, when we hover over these different themes,
• 04:20 it can apply the background color because it's effectively called the same thing in
• 04:25 every theme.
• 04:26 Now, just for the time being, I'm going to put mine back to the Office theme.
• 04:30 Because we're going to talk more about themes when we delve into Form Design in
• 04:34 greater detail in a later lesson.
• 04:36 So, a couple of other changes that I could make here.
• 04:39 Well, I can select all of these labels, and
• 04:42 I can align the text within these labels to the center.
• 04:46 So, I'm going to go to Text Align, and where we have General,
• 04:49 we're going to change this to center, just to move them across.
• 04:53 It might be you also want to change the information that appears in the fields.
• 04:57 I want that to be in the center of the text box, as well.
• 05:01 So I can select all of these and I'm going to change this to Center, as well.
• 05:08 And the final couple of changes I'm going to make here is,
• 05:11 it might be that I want some kind of border around this description.
• 05:15 So, if I click on the description field and go over to the Property Sheet,
• 05:20 notice it says Border Style is Solid.
• 05:22 So, borders are already turned on, I just need to select a color.
• 05:26 So, for this, we can go up to Format, and then in Shape Outline,
• 05:30 I can choose the outline color for this.
• 05:33 So, I'm going to make this a bright blue color.
• 05:36 And I'm also going to make the line a lot thicker, like so.
• 05:42 Now I'm not saying that that looks amazing.
• 05:44 I'm just trying to show you the types of things that you can do.
• 05:47 So, if we now right click and take a look at our report in Report View,
• 05:51 you can see what that looks like.
• 05:53 I now have that blue thick border wherever I have the description field.
• 05:57 So, pretty much everything you're going to want to customize,
• 06:00 you can find in the Property Sheet.
• 06:02 It's just a matter of scrolling through and
• 06:05 finding exactly what it is that you want to change.

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