The Report Layout Designer is a "band-oriented" designer. That is, objects that appear in the report appear in one of several bands. The types of bands available are:

• TopMargin: determines the margin at the top of the page.

• BottomMargin: determines the margin at the bottom of the page.

• ReportHeader: appears at the start of the report.

• ReportFooter: appears at the end of the report.

• PageHeader: appears at the top of every page.

• PageFooter: appears at the bottom of every page.

• Detail: prints once for every record in the report.

• GroupHeader: prints at the start of a new group.

• GroupFooter: prints at the end of a new group (just before a new group is started or at the end of the report).

A report consists of, at a minimum, TopMargin, Detail, and BottomMargin bands; these bands cannot be deleted. In addition, Report Writer creates a ReportFooter band to hold report totals, although you can remove this band if you wish, and there is one GroupHeader and possibly a GroupFooter band per grouped field.

See the Layout Area topic for information on adding and resizing bands.

Properties

The following are properties for bands. Unless noted, these properties don't actually affect the band itself but instead set the property for objects in the band. For example, setting Background Color doesn't make the entire band that color; it just sets the background color of objects in the band that have their Background Color property set to the default. See the Objects topic for information on the properties of objects.

• Name: the name of the band.

• Background Color: the background color of the objects in the band.

• Border Color: the border color of the objects in the band.

• Border Dash Style: the border style of the objects in the band.

• Border Width: the width of the border of the objects in the band.

• Borders: which borders appear for the objects in the band.

• Drill-Down Control:

• Drill-Down Expanded:

• Font: the font of the objects in the band.

• Foreground Color: the foreground (text) color of the objects in the band.

• Formatting Rules: the formatting rules of the objects in the band.

• Group Fields: this property, which is only available for GroupHeader bands, specifies the collection of fields used for the group. Click the "..." button to display the GroupField Collection Editor. In this dialog, you can add and remove group fields and set their properties: the name of the field used for grouping and whether the grouping is in ascending or descending order.

  

• Group Union (GroupHeader): this property, which is only available for GroupHeader bands, determines whether the records in the group can be printed on different pages (set to None), if the entire group is moved to the next page if there isn't enough room on the current page (set to Whole Page), or if the group header is moved to the next page if there isn't enough room for it and at least one detail row (set to With First Detail).

• Group Union (GroupFooter): this property, which is only available for GroupFooter bands, determines whether the records in the group can be printed on different pages (set to None) or if the last row in the detail is moved to the next page if there isn't enough room for it and the group footer (set to With Last Detail).

• Height: the height of the band.

• Keep Together: if No, the objects in this band can be split across pages when there isn't enough room to print them all on the current page. If Yes and all the objects won't fit on the current page, they're all moved to the next page. This property isn't available for TopMargin, BottomMargin, PageHeader, and PageFooter bands.

• Keep Together with Detail Reports: set this property, which is only available for the DetailBand, to Yes if the detail band and its DetailReport band should be moved to the next page if there isn't room for both on the current page. This property won't normally be used since DetailReport bands aren't normally used.

• Multi-Column Options: this property, which is only available for the DetailBand, allows you to specify a multi-column layout for the band. The sub-properties are:

  • Column Count: the number of columns to use. Note that this is only used if Mode is set to Use Column Count.

  • Column Spacing: the amount of space, in whatever the Measure Units for the report is set to, between columns.

  • Column Width: the width of the columns in whatever the Measure Units for the report is set to. Note that this is only used if Mode is set to Use Column Width.

  • Layout: determines how the columns are laid out: First Down, then Across (like a newspaper article) or First Across, then Down.

  • Mode: specifies how columns are sized. Use Column Count means divide the total space by Column Count to determine how much space each column gets. Use Column Width means divide the total space by Column Width to determine how many columns there are, and None means a single-column layout is used.

• Level: this property, which is only available for GroupHeader and GroupFooter bands, determines the grouping level when there's more than one group. The higher the number, the higher the group is. For example, the GroupHeader band with Level set to 1 is printed before the one with Level set to 0.

• Padding: the padding of the objects in the band. Padding is the amount of space around the text as a margin. The sub-properties are All (setting this sets all the others to the same value), Bottom, Left, Right, and Top.

• Page Break: determines if a page break occurs when the band is output. The choices are None, Before the Band, and After the Band. This property isn't available for TopMargin, BottomMargin, PageHeader, and PageFooter bands.

• Print On: controls when the band is printed. The property is only available for PageHeader and PageFooter bands. The choices are:

  • All Pages: the band always prints.

  • Not with Report Header: the band doesn't print if the ReportHeader band is printed on the same page.

  • Not with Report Footer: the band doesn't print if the ReportFooter band is printed on the same page.

  • Not with Report Header and Report Footer: the band doesn't print if both the ReportHeader and ReportFooter bands are printed on the same page.

• Repeat Every Page: if this property, which is only available for GroupHeader and GroupFooter bands, is set to Yes, the band prints on every page. Otherwise, it only prints on the first page for the group.

• Scripts: specifies the script names to execute at various times, such as before and after the band prints.

• Snap Line Padding: specifies the padding used for the objects in the band when they're aligned using snap lines.

• Sort Fields: this property, which is only available for the DetailBand, specifies the collection of fields used for sorting. Click the "..." button to display the GroupField Collection Editor, the same one described for the Group Fields property.

• Sorting Summary: this property, which is only available for GroupHeader bands, allows you to group on summarized values. The sub-properties are:

  • Enabled: set this to Yes to group on summarized values or No to group on individual values.

  • Field Name: the name of the field to do summarization on.

  • Function: the type of summarization to do: Average, Count, Sum, Max, Min, Median, Variance, Population Variance, Standard Deviation, Standard Population Deviation, Average (Distinct), Count (Distinct), Summary (Distinct), Variance (Distinct), Population Variance (Distinct), Standard Deviation (Distinct), Standard Population Deviation (Distinct), and Custom.

  • Ignore Null Values: set this to Yes to ignore null values when performing the summarization.

  • Sort Order: ascending or descending.

• Style Priority: the style priority of the objects in the band.

• Styles: the styles of the objects in the band.

• Sub-Bands: a band can have one or more sub-bands. A sub-band provides a functional copy of the source band. You can use sub-bands to create multiple versions of a band within a single report, such as to display different content based on a specific condition.

• Tag: a user-defined value for the band.

• Text Alignment: the text alignment of the objects in the band.

• Visible: if Yes, the band and the objects in it are output when the report is run. If No, the band and its objects are not output.