Tutorials Reporting ServicesThe dataset for the report is DataSet1 on the left and the report body is in the design area. The various report items and their data binding will be examined for one such control, the CompanyName. It will be instructive to study the others as well. In order to review the report we will follow these steps:
1. Highlight CompanyName and right-click on it.
The properties of CompanyName are displayed as shown. CompanyName is inside a container textbox inside the Tablix and it is a place holder. You should also notice the large square bracket on the left ranging three rows. This is the grouping symbol.
2. Click on Placeholder Properties...;.
This opens the Placeholder's Properties page as shown:
3. Change the Markup type to HTML - Interpret HTML tags as styles.
4. Click on the fx symbol (which opens an Expression window) along the Value.
5. In the Expression window that is displayed, modify the expression as shown in the following screenshot:
You have added the HTML tags <u> and </u> on either side of the original CompanyName data that came from the dataset. Now it is slightly more than the data and in the design view (CompanyName) it is replaced by this expression. A placeholder is the holding place of an expression. You can make a textbox into a placeholder by designating the textbox to hold an expression. For example there are two place holders for the time Now () and the expression ="Page" & Globals.PageNumber & " of "& Globals.TotalPages.
6. Click on the OK button on the Expression window as well as the Placeholder Properties' window.
7. Click on the Run button in the Home menu.
The report gets processed and you may need to provide the login for this report. The username is Admin and there is no password.
8. Click on the View Report button.
The report is displayed in the Report Builder as shown:
9. Click on the Address field in the report design.
The Address field is highlighted in the report as shown:
You can see that this represents the detail (the data that comes in each of the rows). It is also a placeholder and its value is that of "Address". You can apply Rich Text formatting by using HTML tags for textboxes as well as placeholder values.
Note that only certain HTML tags and CSS attributes are supported. For the supported HTML tags refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ library/dd207048.aspx. For an example of CSS rendering, refer to http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2009/01/can-you-use-css-style -attributes-in.html.
10. Change Report title ByOrders to Orders by editing the textbox.
11. Extend the length of the <<Expr>> directly below the report title to accommodate a longer string.
12. Make the EmployeeID field left aligned as well as formatted. Set the font weight Bold.
13. Click on the table that has the Address, City, and so on. Extend it to the right by dragging the table handles so that the Required Date can be fully displayed.
14. Rearrange the positions of objects and the size of textboxes to fully display the data.
Both vertical and horizontal movements of objects can be very smooth and can be changed in Points as shown:
Highlighted objects can be expanded and moved using the Ctrl or Shift keys together with the arrow keys.
The modified report design is shown in the following screenshot:
