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Home > Transport List Report Task 3: Populating a Table Item |
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Transport List Report Task 3: Populating a Table Item |
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| 27 Feb 2006 | SearchSQLServer.com |
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 The following excerpt, courtesy of McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, is from Chapter 5 of the book Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services 2005 written by Brian Larson. Click here to purchase the book.
Populating a table item
Transport List Report, Task 3: Place a Table Item on the Report and
Populate It
- Click the Layout tab to begin working on the report layout.
NOTE
Your installation of the Report Designer may be using a feature called
Auto-Hide with the Toolbox. Auto-Hide is used to provide more screen
space for your report layout. When Auto-Hide is active for the
Toolbox, the Toolbox is only represented on the screen by a tab
containing a tool icon and the word "Toolbox" at the extreme left side
of the window. To view the actual Toolbox, place your mouse pointer on
top of this tab. After a second or two, the Toolbox appears. Once your
mouse pointer moves off the Toolbox, it is automatically hidden again.
- Click the Table report item in the Toolbox. The mouse pointer
changes to a table icon and crosshairs when you move your mouse
pointer over the report layout area, as shown in the next
illustration.
Figure 9
- Click-and-drag the mouse over the lower three-quarters of the
report layout area, as shown in the following illustration. Note, when
you begin dragging, the mouse pointer changes back to the usual arrow
icon.
Figure 10
- When you release the mouse button, after dragging, a table is
created to occupy the area you just defined. By default, every cell in
the table is occupied by an empty text box. Click in each cell of the
table, and note the name and type of report item shown at the top of
the Properties window.
- Let's take a few moments to go over the methods for selecting
various parts of the table. You have already seen how to select
individual cells. The gray border on top of and to the left of the
table item provides handles for selecting other parts of the table.
Click any of the gray rectangles in the border above the table item.
This action selects the corresponding column, as shown in the
following illustration.
Figure 11
- Click any of the gray rectangles in the border to the left of the
table item. This action selects a row, as shown here.
Figure 12
- Click the gray square in the upper-left corner of the border. This
action selects the entire table. When the entire table is selected,
the gray border is replaced by the sizing handles (the small white
squares) for the table. You must select the entire table before you
can move and size the table item.
- In the Datasets window, expand the TransportList dataset. Drag
the SerialNumber field from the Datasets window and drop it on the
middle-left table cell. An expression that returns the value of the
SerialNumber field is placed in the text box that occupies the
middle-left table cell. The name of the field is used to create a
column heading. This is placed in the upper-left table cell.
- Drag the PurchaseDate field from the Datasets window and drop it
on the center table cell. Drag the LatestRepairDate field from the
Datasets window and drop it on the middle-right table cell. The report
layout should now appear, as shown next.
Figure 13
- Select the header row (the top row) by clicking the gray rectangle
in the border to the left of the row.
- Make the following changes in the Properties window:
| Property | New Value |
| FontWeight (expand the Font property to find the FontWeight property) |
Bold |
| TextDecoration | Underline |
- In the gray border to the left of the table, click the line
between the header row and the detail row. Drag it to reduce the
height of the header row.
- In the gray border to the left of the table, click the line
between the detail row and the footer row. Drag it to reduce the
height of the detail row.
- Click the center cell in the table. Hold down SHIFT and click the
middle-right cell in the table. Both of these cells are now selected.
Make the following changes in the Properties window:
| Property | New Value |
| Format |
MM/dd/yyyy |
| TextAlign | Left |
- Click the Preview tab to preview the report. The report should
appear as shown here.
Figure 14
Task Notes In the Properties window are several instances where
a group of related properties are combined under a summary property.
For instance, the FontStyle, FontFamily, FontSize, and FontWeight
properties are combined under the Font property. The Font property
serves as a summary of the other four.
Initially, only the summary property is visible in the Properties
window. A plus (+) sign to the left of a property tells you it is a
summary property and has several detail properties beneath it. The
summary property has a value that concatenates the values of all the
detail properties underneath it.
For example, suppose the FontStyle, FontFamily, FontSize, and
FontWeight properties have the following values:
| FontStyle: |
Normal |
| FontFamily: |
Arial |
| FontSize: |
10pt |
| FontWeight: |
Bold |
In that case, the Font property has this value:
| Font: |
Normal, Arial, 10pt, Bold |
You can change the value of a detail property by editing the
concatenated values in the summary property, or you can expand the
summary property and edit the detail properties directly.
Click for the next excerpt in this series: Transport List Report Task 4: Add Table Grouping
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