Advanced Report Design - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 184

We will no longer be using the Report Wizard throughout the remainder of the topic. You should be able
to add a new report to a project, create or select a shared data source, create a data set, and add items to
the Report Designer by now. This chapter will provide directions for using nearly all of the design ele-
ments mentioned here.
Although you will be exploring more advanced report design techniques, I've made it a point to keep
the data sets very simple. In a few cases in subsequent chapters where I do use complex queries, you
may download these examples from the topic's companion site at P2P.com and paste the script into a
new report. For most of the examples, you'll simply use a list of products with categories and subcate-
gories. This will help to keep things simple while focusing on report design features rather than the
intricacies of the data.
Chapter 4 covered using items and data regions in a report. In particular, you used the wizard to gener-
ate a tabular report with a table data region . In this chapter, you will start by repeating this exercise, only
with a greater level of detail to create a report to your own specifications.
Anatomy of a Text Box
The text box is one of the most fundamental and most common report items. Generally, all text and data
values are displayed using text boxes. The cells of a table and matrix contain individual text boxes. In
addition to the text displayed, there are several useful properties used to manage the placement, style,
and presentation of data. Font properties, Color , BackGroundColor, and BackGroundImage proper-
ties make it possible to dress up your report data with tremendous flexibility.
The BorderStyle properties of a text box are similar to those of other report items (such as a rectangle,
list, table, and matrix.) Once you have mastered the text box properties, you should be able to use these
other items in much the same way. When using a table, group separation lines are created by setting the
border properties for text boxes in header and footer rows (typically by selecting the entire row and set-
ting the text box properties as a group).
Three property groups are used for borders. In the Properties window, these groups are expanded using
the plus sign (+) icon to reveal individual properties. The group summary text can actually be manipu-
lated without expanding the properties, but it's usually easier to work with specific property values. The
BorderColor , BorderStyle , and BorderWidth properties each contain a Default value that will apply
to individual properties (that is, Left, Right, Top, and Bottom) that have not otherwise been set. This pro-
vides a means to set general properties and then override the exceptions. By default, a text box has a black
BorderColor and a 1-point BorderWidth with the BorderStyle set to None . To add a border to all four
sides, simply set the Default BorderStyle to Solid . Beyond this, individual properties may be used to
add more creative border effects. Figure 6-1 shows two text boxes with a variety of border styles. The sec-
ond text box corresponds to the property settings shown in the selection of the Properties window.