Formatting concepts
In this section, you will learn about formatting your report. Formatting refers to those things that you can do to change the layout and design of your report, as well as the appearance of text, objects, or entire report sections.
You can use formatting to do many things:
●separate sections of your report,
●call attention to certain data,
●change the presentation of dates, numbers, Boolean, currency values, and text (strings),
●hide unwanted sections, or
●give your report a professional appearance.
Seagate Crystal Reports gives you a wide range of formatting commands and properties that you can apply to various elements in your report.
●Use formatting commands by choosing or setting options in dialog boxes that are specific to the kind of formatting you are doing. For example, if you want to change page margins, use a dialog box that lets you specify the top, bottom, right, and left margins.
●Set formatting properties in either the FORMAT EDITOR (for objects) or the SECTION EXPERT (for sections) by toggling check boxes on and off or by supplying attribute values. In most cases, you can set the properties in one of two ways:
¾Absolute (always apply the property), or
¾Conditional (apply the property only if certain criteria are met).
You can use both kinds of formatting properties wherever you need them in your report. See Absolute formatting, Page 233, and
Conditional formatting, Page 235.
In the topics that follow, you will learn about the kinds of formatting you can do with Seagate Crystal Reports, and you will get step-by- step instructions for performing a variety of formatting tasks.
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Absolute formatting
Absolute formatting is formatting that applies under any condition.
SELECT, THEN APPLY
Absolute formatting always follows a select then apply procedure:
●you select what it is that you want to format (an object or a section), and then
●you apply the formatting to your selection using property settings.
Use the following dialog boxes for formatting your reports:
●Format Editor for formatting field values.
¾Borders Tab of the FORMAT EDITOR for formatting objects, numbers, and text,
¾Box Tab of the FORMAT EDITOR for formatting boxes, and
¾Line Tab of the FORMAT EDITOR for formatting lines.
●Section Expert for formatting entire sections.
Each of these dialog boxes contains a number of different formatting properties and the tools for turning the properties on or off, or for specifying attributes. Search for the dialog box by name in Seagate Crystal Reports online Help.
.
Types of formatting properties
Formatting properties fall into two general categories:
●On or Off Properties
●Attribute Properties
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ON OR OFF PROPERTIES
An on or off property is a property that is set using a check box.
●When you toggle the check box on, the property is always applied.
●When you toggle the check box off, the property is never applied.
The Suppress property is one such on or off property; an object or section is either suppressed (on) or it is not (off).
ATTRIBUTE PROPERTIES
An attribute property is a property that specifies one of many alternative attributes. The Color property, for example, gives you the opportunity to specify one of the 16 basic Windows colors or to specify a custom color and then create that color using the tools provided. Clearly such a property can not be handled with a simple on or off switch.
You set an attribute property in one of several ways, depending on the property. You can set it:
●by clicking an option button,
●by selecting an attribute from a drop-down box,
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● or, by typing an attribute in a text box.
Conditional formatting
Conditional on
or off properties
Conditional formatting is formatting that applies only under certain conditions. For example, you may only want:
●customer balances printed in red if they are past due,
●the dates to appear in Day, Month, Year format if the customer is Canadian, or
●background color to appear on every other line.
Seagate Crystal Reports makes it easy for you to apply formatting conditionally in these and hundreds of other situations. See How to format objects conditionally, Page 224.
With absolute formatting you follow the select then apply procedure. For conditional formatting you follow the same general procedure, but you go a step further and set up conditions that determine whether or not the formatting will be applied. You specify those conditions using simple formulas. See Formulas 101, Page 321.
NOTE: When you set up a conditional formatting formula, the formula overrides any fixed settings you have made in the Format Editor. For example, if you toggle the Suppress option on and then
you set up a conditional formula for the Suppress option, the property will still apply only if the condition in the formula is met.
The program enables you to set both on and off properties and attribute properties conditionally. However, each of these requires a different kind of formula.
A conditional on or off property tests to see if a condition has been met. It is on if the condition is met, off if the condition is not met. There is no middle ground.
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Conditional
attribute properties
Use Boolean formulas for this kind of formatting.
Value = condition
The program tests each value to see if it meets the condition and it returns a yes or no answer. It then applies the property to every value that returns a yes answer.
A conditional attribute property tests to see which of two or more conditions are met. The program then applies the formatting appropriate to the condition. For example, assume that you want values under quota printed in red and all other values printed in black. The program tests to see whether the value is under quota or not. If it is under quota, it applies the red attribute, if it is not, it applies the black attribute.
Use an If-Then-Else formula for this kind of conditional formatting. See How to create if-then-else formulas, Page 346.
If Condition A Then
Red
Else
Black
NOTE: When you set up conditional attribute properties, the program loads a selection of attributes into the Functions list in
the Formula Editor. You can double-click any of those attributes to add them to your formula. For example, if you are setting horizontal alignment conditionally, the Functions list box will
contain attributes such as DefaultHorAligned, LeftAligned, Justified, etc.; if you are setting borders conditionally, the Functions list box will contain attributes such as NoLine,
SingleLine, DashedLine, etc.
You can take this kind of property one step further. You can specify a list of conditions and a property for each; you are not limited to two or three conditions. For example, if you have a number field on your report that contains sales figures from countries around the world, you can specify the number attribute(s) that you want to apply to each country. In this case, your conditions would specify that if it is from Country A, apply the Country A attribute; Country B, apply the Country B attribute; Country C, apply the Country C attribute, and so on.
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Values that do
not fit any condition
With more than two alternatives, use this kind of formula:
If Condition A Then
Red
Else If Condition B Then
Black
Else If Condition C Then
Green
Else
Blue
Use a multi-condition If-Then-Else formula for this kind of conditional formatting. See How to create multi-condition if-then-else formulas, Page 348.
With conditional on or off properties, values will either meet the condition you set or they will not. But conditional attribute properties are different. There may be some cases where values do not fit any of the conditions you set up.
For example, if you set:
●all sales figures that are more than 10% over quota to appear green, and
●all sales figures that are less than 10% over quota to appear red,
what is going to happen to values that are exactly 10%? The program takes care of that automatically. When a value does not fit any of the conditions in the formula (in this example, all values that are 10%), the program formats that value using the attribute setting in the dialog box.
In this example, if the Color drop-down box on the Font Tab of the Format Editor is set to Blue for the sales field, all values that are exactly 10% will appear in blue. The dialog box setting does not override the formula setting; it simply provides an attribute when the formula does not.
Several Hands-On topics are included showing how to format sections and objects conditionally. While the topics detail specific reporting needs, they illustrate basic procedures as well.
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