These are properties that all or most objects types have in common.

A special note about certain types of properties:

• Color properties, such a Background Color and Border Color. Transparent means it shows the background color of its container (a band or a panel). Click the down arrow to display a color picker window you can use to choose the color.

  

• Font properties have the following sub-properties:

  • Bold: Yes if the object's text should appear in bold.

  • GDI Character Set: indicates which character set to use. The choices are:

    Character set	Value
    ANSI	0
    Default	1
    Symbol	2
    ShiftJIS	128
    Hangeul	129
    Hangul	129
    GB2312	134
    ChineseBig5	136
    OEM	255
    Johab	130
    Hebrew	177
    Arabic	178
    Greek	161
    Turkish	162
    Vietnamese	163
    Thai	222
    EastEurope	238
    Russian	204
    Mac	77
    Baltic	186

    
    

  • GDI Vertical Font: this property is for internal use.

  • Italic: Yes if the object's text should appear italicized.

  • Name: the font name to use. Choose the desired font from the drop-down list.

  • Size: the font size in the units specified in the Unit property.

  • Strikeout: Yes if the object's text should appear with a line through the middle.

  • Underline: Yes if the object's text should be underlined.

  • Unit: the units for the Size property. The default is Point.

• Dimension properties, such as Location, Padding, and Size, are measured in the units specified by the Measure Unit property of the report. The default is hundredths of an inch.

• A format string property, usually called Format String, specifies how a value should be formatted. The format string is typically something like "{0:format}," where format is a set of symbols. Commonly used format symbols are:

  Symbol	Description
  cn	Displays the value using the currency settings based on the Locale setting (for example, "$" as the currency symbol, "," as the thousands separator, and "." as the decimal separator in North America) and the number of decimal places specified as n. For example, 4132 formatted as c2 displays as $4,132.00 in North America and €4.132,00 in Germany.
  0	A place holder for a digit, padded with a zero if necessary. For example, 4132 formatted as 000000 displays as 004132.
  #	A place holder for a digit, blank if necessary. For example, 4132 formatted as #####0 displays as 4132.
  ,	Displays the thousands separator symbol based on the Locale setting (for example, "," in North America). You only have to specify the character once, not once every three places. For example, 4132 formatted as #,##0 displays as 4,132 in North America and 4.132 in Germany.
  .	Displays a decimal separator symbol based on the Locale setting (for example, "." in North America). For example, 4132 formatted as #,##0.00 displays as 4,132.00 in North America and 4.132,00 in Germany.
  %	Multiplies the value by 100 and appends a percentage sign. For example, 0.132 formatted as ##0.00% displays as 13.20%.
  d	Displays a date/time value using the Short Date setting based on the Locale setting. For example, January 10, 2013 2:22:30 PM displays as 1/10/2013 in the U.S. and 10/01/2013 in France.
  D	Displays a date/time value using the Long Date setting based on the Locale setting. For example, January 10, 2013 2:22:30 PM displays as Thursday, January 10, 2013 in the U.S.
  g	Displays a date/time value using the Short Date setting based on the Locale setting, including the time without seconds. For example, January 10, 2013 2:22:30 PM displays as 1/10/2013 2:22 PM in the U.S.
  G	Displays a date/time value using the Short Date setting based on the Locale setting, including the time with seconds. For example, January 10, 2013 2:22:30 PM displays as 1/10/2013 2:22:30 PM in the U.S.
  t	Displays a date/time value using the Short Time setting based on the Locale setting. For example, January 10, 2013 2:22:30 PM displays as 2:22 PM in the U.S.
  T	Displays a date/time value using the Long Time setting based on the Locale setting. For example, January 10, 2013 2:22:30 PM displays as 2:22:30 PM in the U.S.

  
  

  For numeric values, you can specify how positive, negative, and zero values are displayed by separating the three formats with semi-colons. For example, #,##0.00;-#,##0.00;"" formats positive numbers as #,##0.00, negative numbers as -#,##0.00, and zero as blank.

  Other symbols can be used as well; see MSDN (such as http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0c899ak8.aspx, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dwhawy9k.aspx, and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/az4se3k1.aspx)

The common properties are:

• Data Bindings: data binding allows some property of the object to get its value from a field or parameter. That's how a label displays the value of a field in the result set, for example; its Text property is bound to the field. Different type of objects have different properties available for binding, but each data binding property has two sub-properties: Binding, which is the name of the field or parameter the property is bound to, and Format String, which specifies how to format the value. Commonly data-bound properties are Bookmark (the value of the field is used in the Table of Contents or document map), Text (the object displays the value of the field), Check State (the Check Box object displays as checked or unchecked depending on value of the field), Html and Rtf (the Rich Text object displays the formatted HTML or RTF content of the field), Image (the Picture Box object displays the image stored in the field), and ImageURL (the Picture Box displays the image whose path on disk is stored in the field).

• Name: the name of the object. The name must start with a letter or underscore and can only contain letters, numbers, and underscores.

• Anchor Horizontally: this property attaches the object to the specified side (left, right, or both).

• Anchor Vertically: this property attaches the object to the specified side (top, bottom, or both). The CanGrow and CanShrink properties are ignored if this is set to Bottom or Both.

• Background Color: the background color of the object.

• Bookmark: the text for the bookmark in the Table of Contents object or document map. If no object has Bookmark set or data-bound, there is no document map for the report and any Table of Contents object displays a message that there are no bookmarks. If there are bookmarks, a document map appears when the report is run; clicking a bookmark in the map jumps to the page where that bookmark appears.

  

  This property is normally data-bound rather than being set manually.

• Border Color: the color of the object's border. This is only applicable if at least one of the borders appears; see the Borders property.

• Border Dash Style: the type of line used for the border: solid, dash, dot, dash-dot, dash-dot-dot, or double. This is only applicable if at least one of the borders appears; see the Borders property.

• Border Width: the width of the border

• Borders: which borders appear for the object. Click the down arrow to display a border picker where you can choose which borders should display.

  

• Can Grow: set this property to Yes if the object's height can increase to display the entire contents of the object. If it's set to No, the property can't grow so some of the content may be cut off.

• Can Publish: set this property to Yes (the default) if the object is displayed in a printed or exported document.

• Can Shrink: set this property to Yes if the object's height can decrease if the content doesn't take up the current height.

• Font: the font settings for the object.

• Foreground Color: the foreground (text) color of the object.

• Formatting Rules: clicking the "..." button displays the Formatting Rules Editor when you can select the formatting rules for the object.

• Keep Together: if No, the text of the object can be split across pages when there isn't enough room to print all of it on the current page. If Yes and text won't all fit on the current page, the object is moved to the next page.

• Location: the object's location. The sub-properties are X (the left edge of the object) and Y (the top of the object).

• Navigation Target: the target window or frame in which to display the linked content specified by the Navigation URL property.

• Navigation URL: a URL to navigate to when the object is clicked.

• Padding: 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.

• Parent Bookmark: if you want a hierarchical document map or table of contents, set this property to the "parent" that this object's bookmark should appear under.

• Scripts: displays the name of the script event handlers for each event raised by the object. To add an event handler for an event, choose it from the drop-down list.

• Size: the size of the object. The sub-properties and Height and Width.

• Snap Line Padding: specifies the padding used when the object is aligned using snap lines.

• Style Priority: determines whether to override certain settings of the styles used by the object with the properties of the object itself. See the Styles topic for details.

• Styles: specifies the styles used by the object. See the Styles topic for details.

• Tag: a user-defined value for the object. Report Writer uses this internally so you should leave it alone.

• Text: the text to display. This property is normally data-bound rather than being set manually.

• Text Alignment: the text alignment of the object. Click the down arrow to display a picker you can select the alignment from.

  

• Text Trimming: this setting determines what to do if the value of the field in a particular record is longer than the space allocated in the report. The choices are:

  • None: no trimming is done.
  • Character: this cuts off the text at the last character that fits.
  • Word: this cuts off the text at the last whole word.
  • EllipsisCharacter: like Character but adds an ellipsis.
  • EllipsisWord: like Word but adds an ellipsis.
  • EllipsisPath: characters at the start and end of the text appear but middle characters are replaced by an ellipsis.

• Visible: if Yes, the object is output when the report is run. If No, the object is not output.

• Word Wrap: if Yes, the text is word wrapped to the next line if the object isn't wide enough to display all the text on one line. Note that if Can Grow is Yes, the object grows vertically to accommodate the additional height required. If it's set to No, the additional lines won't appear so the text is cut off.

• Xlsx Format String: the format to use for the object's values when the report is exported to Microsoft Excel.