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.Make sure you also resize all of the controls as shown in the figure.The memo fieldmemFeatures and the OLE picture field olePicture must also be changed in both sizeand shape.Place all of the controls in their proper position to complete the report layout.You want thisfirst pass at rearranging the controls to look like the example shown in Figure 8-24.You willmake a series of block moves by selecting several controls and then positioning them closeto where you want them.Then, if needed, you fine-tune their position.This is the way mostreports are done. 206 Part I &' Getting Functional with Office 2003Follow Figure 8-24 to begin placing the controls where they should be.You may want tonotice that the control labels in the Page Header section have been underlined.Also noticethe new label Cost/Retail/Sale Prices in the Detail section.Figure 8-24: Rearranging the controls on the report.At this point, you are about halfway done.The screen should look like the one shown inFigure 8-24.(If it doesn t, adjust your controls until your screen matches the figure.)Remember that these screen pictures are taken with the Windows screen driver set at 1024 x768.If you are using 800 x 600, 640 x 480, or large fonts, you ll have to scroll the screen tosee the entire report.These steps complete the rough design for this report.There are still properties, fonts, andsizes to change.When you make these changes, you ll have to move fields around again.Use the designs in Figure 8-19 only as a guideline.How it looks to you, as you refine thelook of the report in the Report window, determines the real design.Modifying the appearance of multiple controlsThe next step is to format all the label controls in the Page Header section directly above thesection separator to be underlined.The following steps guide you through modifying theappearance of text in multiple label controls:1.Select all label controls in the bottom of the Page Header section by individuallyclicking them while holding down the Shift key.There are four label controls toselect, as shown in Figure 8-24.You could also have placed your cursor in the vertical ruler at about 1.25 inchesand, when it changed to a right-pointing bold arrow, clicked the mouse to select allthe controls in that horizontal area of the report.2.Click the Underline button on the toolbar. Chapter 8 &' Understanding and Creating Access Reports 207NoteYou could also have selected all the label controls in the preceding steps by using the drag-and-surround method.After you make the final modifications, you are finished, except for fixing the picturecontrol.To do this, you need to change properties, which you do in the next section.Thismay seem to be an enormous number of steps because the procedures were designed to showyou how laying out a report design can be a slow process.Remember, however, that whenyou click away with the mouse, you don t realize how many steps you are doing as youdesign the report layout visually.With a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)layout like that of the Access report designer, you may need to perform many tasks, but it sstill easier and faster than programming.Figure 8-24 shows the final version of the designlayout as seen in this chapter.Changing label and text box control propertiesTo change the properties of a text or label control, you need to display the control s propertysheet.If it is not already displayed, perform one of these actions to display it:&' Double-click the border of the control (anywhere except a sizing handle or Movehandle).&' Click the Properties button on the toolbar.&' Select View Properties.&' Right-click the mouse and select Properties.The property sheet enables you to look at a control s property settings and provides an easyway to edit the settings.Using tools such as the formatting windows and text-formattingbuttons on the Formatting toolbar also changes the property settings of a control.Clickingthe Bold button, for example, really sets the Font Weight property to Bold.It is usuallymuch more intuitive to use the toolbar (or even the menus), but some properties are notaccessible this way.In addition, sometimes objects have more options available through theproperty sheet.The Size Mode property of an OLE object (bound object frame), with its options of Clip,Stretch, and Zoom, is a good example of a property that is available only through theproperty sheet.The Image control, which is a bound object frame, presently has its Size Mode property setto Clip, which is the default.With Clip, the picture is displayed in its original size and maybe too large to fit in the frame.In this exercise, you will change the setting to Stretch so thatthe picture is sized automatically to fit the picture frame.To change the property for the bound object frame control that contains the picture, followthese steps:1.Click the frame control of the picture bound object.2.Click the Size Mode property. 208 Part I &' Getting Functional with Office 20033.Click the arrow to display the drop-down list box.4.Select Stretch.These steps complete the changes so far to your report.A print preview of the first fewrecords appears in Figure 8-25.If you look at the pictures, notice how the picture is properlydisplayed and the Features field now appears across the bottom of the detail section.Thelabels are all underlined.Figure 8-25: The report print preview.Growing and shrinking text box controlsWhen you print or print-preview fields that can have variable text lengths, Access providesoptions for enabling a control to grow or shrink vertically, depending on the exact contentsof a record.The option Can Grow determines whether a text control adds lines to fitadditional text if the record contains more lines of text than the control can display.Theoption Can Shrink determines whether a control deletes blank lines if the record s contentsuse fewer lines than the control can display.Although these properties are usable for anytext field, they are especially helpful for memo field controls like the Features control.Table 8-3 explains the acceptable values for these two properties. Chapter 8 &' Understanding and Creating Access Reports 209Table 8-3Text Control Values for Can Grow and Can ShrinkProperty Value DescriptionCan Grow Yes If the data in a record uses more lines than the control is definedto display, the control resizes to accommodate additional lines.Can Grow No If the data in a record uses more lines than the control is definedto display, the control does not resize; it truncates the datadisplay.Can Shrink Yes If the data in a record uses fewer lines than the control isdefined to display, the control resizes to eliminate blank lines [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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