The following are properties you can change if desired.

Appearance section

• Padding: changing the padding sets the default value for that property for objects rather than controlling the report itself. See Common Properties for a discussion of padding.

• Page Color: the background color for pages in the report. You won't see the color in the Layout Area but you will when you run the report.

• Watermark: specifies the settings of the watermark for the report. A watermark is text or an image that appears behind the other objects on the page. The sub-properties are:

  • Font: the font of the watermark text.

  • Foreground Color: the foreground color of the watermark text.

  • Text Transparency: the transparency of the text. The range is 0 to 255, with 0 being completely opaque and 255 completely transparent.

  • Text: the watermark text.

  • Text Direction: the direction of the watermark text.

  • Image: the path for the image to use as a watermark.

  • Image Transparency: the transparency of the image. The range is 0 to 255, with 0 being completely opaque and 255 completely transparent.

  • Image Tiling: set this to Yes to tile the image.

  • Image Alignment: the alignment for the image.

  • Image View Mode: specifies whether the image is clipped, stretched, or zoomed.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to display the watermark on.

  • Show Behind: set this to Yes to display the watermark behind the report contents or No to display it in front.

• Formatting Rules: the formatting rules of the report.

Behavior section

• Display Name: the descriptive name of the report.

• Measure Units: by default, the measurement units of a report are hundredths of an inch. This setting affects the values for properties that specify size and location, such as Padding and Margins. The choices for this property are Hundredths of an Inch, Tenths of a Millimeter, or Pixels.

• Request Parameters: turn this on to request the values of parameters from the user before running the report.

• Show Margin Lines: turn this on to display page margin lines.

• Vertical Content Splitting: this determines whether objects outside the right page margin are split across pages (Exact) or moved in their entirety to the next page (Smart).

• Visible: this is normally turned on so it displays the objects in the report.

• Script Language: the language to use for scripts.

• Export Options: specifies options used when exporting the report. The CSV Export Options control output to comma-separated values (CSV) files. The sub-properties are:

  • Encoding: the type of data encoding to use.

  • Text Export Mode: if this is set to Value, only the content of the field is output. If it's set to Text, the formatting is included.

  • Quote Strings with Separators: turn this on if a string containing the character defined in the Separator property should have quotes around it.

  • Separator: the character used to separate fields; a comma by default.

  • *Skip empty columns: turn this on to not output empty columns.

  • *Skip empty rows: turn this on to not output empty rows.

  The HTML Export Options control output to HTML files. The sub-properties are:

  • Export Mode: specifies how the report is exported to HTML. Single File means a single file is created as one long report, Single File (Page-by-Page) means a single file is created but is paginated, and Different Files means one file is created per page.

  • Page Border Color: the border color of the page.

  • Page Border Width: the border width of the page.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Title: the title of the HTML document.

  • Table layout: turn this on to use table layout.

  • Remove Secondary Symbols: turn this on to remove secondary symbols, such as spaces and carriage returns, from the file to reduce its size.

  • Enable Images in HTML: turn this on to embed images in the HTML content.

  The Image Export Options control output to image files. The sub-properties are:

  • Export Mode: specifies how the report is exported. Single File means a single file is created as one long report, Single File (Page-by-Page) means a single file is created but is paginated, and Different Files means one file is created per page.

  • Page Border's Color: the border color of the page.

  • Page Border's Width: the border width of the page.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Resolution: the resolution in DPI of the resulting image.

  • Format: the type of image to create: BMP, EMF, WMF, GIF, JPEG, PNG, or TIFF.

  The MHT Export Options control output to MHT (short for MIME HTML) files. MHT includes external resources, such as images, in the HTML document. The sub-properties are:

  • Export Mode: specifies how the report is exported to HTML. Single File means a single file is created as one long report, Single File (Page-by-Page) means a single file is created but is paginated, and Different Files means one file is created per page.

  • Page Border Color: the border color of the page.

  • Page Border Width: the border width of the page.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Title: the title of the HTML document.

  • Character Set: the character set to use in the file.

  • Table layout: turn this on to use table layout.

  • Remove Secondary Symbols: turn this on to remove secondary symbols, such as spaces and carriage returns, from the file to reduce its size.

  The PDF Export Options control output to PDF files. The sub-properties are:

  • Convert Images to Jpeg: turn this on to convert images to JPEG when creating the file.

  • Show Print Dialog: turn this on to display the Print Dialog when the PDF file is opened.

  • Compressed: turn this on to compress the file.

  • Never Embed Fonts: a semi-colon delimited list of fonts which should not be embedded in the file. Embedded fonts make the file much larger but make them readable on systems that don't have those fonts installed.

  • Image Quality: the quality of images in the file.

  • PDF A Compatibility: specifies compatibility with the PDF A format. The choices are None or PdfA2b.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Author: the name of the author.

  • Application: the name of the application creating the document.

  • Title: the title of the file.

  • Subject: the subject for the file.

  • Keywords: keywords for the file.

  • OpenPassword: the password to use to open the document.

  • Permissions Password: the password to change the restrictions.

  • Printing allowed: controls whether and what type of printing is allowed.

  • Changes allowed: controls whether and what type of changes are allowed.

  • Enable copying of text, images, and other content: turn this on to allow copying content.

  • Enable text access for screen reader devices for the visually impaired: turn this on to allow the document to be read by a screen reader device.

  The RTF Export Options control output to RTF files. The sub-properties are:

  • Export Mode: specifies how the report is exported to HTML. Single File means a single file is created as one long report and Single File (Page-by-Page) means a single file is created but is paginated.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Export Watermark: turn this on to export the report's watermark; see the Watermark property for details.

  The Text Export Options control output to a text file. The sub-properties are:

  • Encoding: the type of data encoding to use.

  • Quote Strings with Separators: turn this on if a string containing the character defined in the Separator property should have quotes around it.

  • Separator: the character used to separate fields; a tab by default.

  • Text Export Mode: if this is set to Value, only the content of the field is output. If it's set to Text, the formatting is included.

  The XLS Export Options control output to Microsoft Excel 97-2003 XLS files. The sub-properties are:

  • Export Mode: specifies how the report is exported. Single File means a single file is created as one long report and Different Pages means a separate file is created for each page.

  • Export Hyperlinks: turn this on to include hyperlinks in the file.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Raw Data Mode: turn this on to only export data or No to include the formatting.

  • Sheet Name: the name to use for the worksheet.

  • Show Grid Lines: turn this on to display Excel's grid lines.

  • Suppress 256 Columns Warning: turn this on to suppress the warning that appears if the spreadsheet has more than 256 columns.

  • Suppress 65536 Rows Warning: turn this on to suppress the warning that appears if the spreadsheet has more than 65,536 rows.

  • Text Export Mode: if this is set to Value, only the content of the field is output. If it's set to Text, the formatting is included.

  • WorkbookColorPaletteCompliance: specifies the color palette compatibility mode with different workbook versions. The choices are ReducePaletteForExactColor, which keeps the original color values but only includes the first 56 colors in the palette, and AdjustColorsToDefault, which reduces the color values to match the 56 standard colors of the default workbook palette.

  The XLSX Export Options control output to Microsoft Excel 2007 or later XLSX files. The sub-properties are:

  • Export Mode: specifies how the report is exported to HTML. Single File means a single file is created as one long report, Single File (Page-by-Page) means a single file is created but is paginated, and Different Files means one file is created per page.

  • Export Hyperlinks: turn this on to include hyperlinks in the file.

  • Page Range: the range of pages to output.

  • Raw Data Mode: turn this on to only export data or No to include the formatting.

  • Sheet Name: the name to use for the worksheet.

  • Show Grid Lines: turn this on to display Excel's grid lines.

  • Text Export Mode: if this is set to Value, only the content of the field is output. If it's set to Text, the formatting is included.

• Report Print Options: the sub-properties are:

  • Print when Data Source is Empty: turn this on to allow the report to print when there are no records in the result set for the report or false to prevent the printing.

  • Detail Count at Design Time: enter a value to limit the number of records shown when the report is previewed in the Advanced Report Designer. This is useful if there are a lot of records, resulting in a lot of pages, and you want to tweak the report, preview it, tweak, preview, and so on without taking the time to render every page when previewing. 0 means there is no limit.

  • Detail Count when Data Source is Empty: enter a value to specify how many times to print the detail band when there are no records in the result set for the report.

  • Blank Detail Count: use this to specify the number of rows to move down as an indent before printing the detail band's data for the first time when creating multi-column reports.

  • Detail Count: enter a value to limit the number of records printed. 0 means there is no limit.

• Scripts: specifies the script names to execute at various times.

Data section

• Data Source: automatically set by Report Writer and shouldn't be touched.

• Data Member: automatically set by Report Writer and shouldn't be touched.

• Filter String: this specifies an expression that filters the data in the report. You shouldn't need to use this; instead, create a filter for the report in step 4 of the report wizards.

Design section

• Name: the name of the band.

• Snap Grid Size: by default, there are grid lines every 1/8 of an inch. To change the grid scale, edit the value of this property. By default, the measurement units of a report are hundredths of an inch, so a value of 12.5 means grid lines appear every 12.5/100 or 1/8 of an inch.

Navigation section

• Bookmark: the text shown as a root bookmark in the report's document map.

Page Settings section

• Roll paper: this indicates whether the report is supposed to be printed on roll paper; that is, as a single uninterrupted page.

• Page Width: the width of the page in the units specified in Measure Units. This is disabled unless Paper Kind is set to Custom.

• Page Height: the height of the page in the units specified in Measure Units. This is disabled unless Paper Kind is set to Custom.

• Paper Kind: the type of paper for the report.

• Margins: the bottom, left, right, and top page margins in the units specified in Measure Units.