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About this lesson
Explore the basics of modifying a reports design.
Exercise files
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11.02 report-design - Exercise.docx62.5 KB 11.02 report-design - Exercise solution.docx
85.2 KB TechGurusTicketing27.accdb
944 KB TechGurusTicketing27 - Complete.accdb
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Quick reference
Report Design
Customize the look and feel of a report.
When to use
We can customize the look and feel of any report by adjusting the report properties in the Property Sheet. This is particularly useful if a report has to conform to company branding and house style.
Instructions
Complex Reports
Creating complex reports is outside the scope of this course. However, it is very simple to create a more detailed report using Report Design.
Using this option we can create a complex report by adding existing fields from multiple tables and arranging them on the form.
Report Design
Add a title
- Open ‘rptTicketDetailReport’ and switch to Design View.
- Select the title and change the name to ‘Ticket Detail Report’.
Change the theme
Themes control the colors and font style in use in the report. The default theme in Access is the 'Office' theme.
- From the Report Design tab, in the Themes group, click Themes.
- Select Ion Boardroom from the gallery.
- Notice the change to the colors and the font style.
If we want to keep the theme color but change the font, we can click on the Fonts dropdown.
Aligning Text
- Select all text boxes on the report.
- From the Property Sheet, in the Text Align field, choose Center from the drop-down list.
Adding a Border
We can add a border around fields and labels.
- Select the 'Description' box on the form.
- From the Property Sheet, in the Border Style field, choose Solid from the drop-down list.
- From the Format tab, in the Control Formatting group, select Shape Outline.
- Select a color from the palette.
- From the Format tab, in the Control Formatting group, select Shape Outline.
- Select Line Thickness.
- Choose a thicker line style.
- 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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