The Property Grid displays the properties, or settings, for the objects in a report. You can change the values of the properties as necessary.

See the Controlling Tool Windows topic for information on controlling the location of the Property Grid.

Selecting an object in the Layout Area or the Report Explorer makes that the selected object whose properties are displayed in the grid. You can also select an object from the drop-down list at the top of the window. The properties displayed vary depending on the type of object selected; see the various help topics under the Objects heading for information about the properties.

The grid has two columns. The first column shows the name of the property and the second column shows its value. You can change the relative width of the columns by positioning your mouse pointer on the dividing line between them and dragging left or right. By default, the properties are ordered by category, such as Appearance and Behavior. To display properties alphabetically instead, click the . Click to reorder the list by category. To collapse the list of properties under a category, click the up arrow to the right of the category name. Click it again to expand the list.

Click a property name to select it. The description for the property appears at the bottom of the Property Grid. You can change the height of the description panel by positioning your mouse pointer on the dividing line between the grid and the panel and dragging up or down.

To change the value of a property, click its value. With some properties, you type a new value. For example, for Border Width, type the desired width. Some properties have a drop-down list of values. For example, when you click the value for Background Color, a color picker control appears. Some properties consist of sub-properties; such properties have a small right-pointing arrow beside their names. Click the arrow to expand the list to show the sub-properties. For example, Font consists of Name, Size, Bold, and several other sub-properties. Some properties display an ellipsis (a button with "...") beside the value. Click that button to display the associated editor window. For example, clicking that button for Style Sheet displays the Styles Editor.

A value that hasn't changed from its default setting appears in normal text while one that has been changed appears in bold. You can reset the value back to its default setting by right-clicking the property name and choosing Reset from the shortcut menu; this item is disabled for some properties, such as collections.