1. Creating Custom Reports

2. 2 Design and create a custom report You can easily create custom reports based on a table or query. There are seven sections that can be added to a report: –Report Headers and Footers, Page Headers and Footers, Group Headers and Footers, and a detail section You can change any of these sections for your report. At a minimum, you will always include a detail section in your report. The usual order of development is to first develop the table(s) in a database, then develop queries, and finally develop forms and reports.

3. 3 Report sections and their contents

4. 4 An Access report with all sections shown

5. 5 Design a report before creating it

6. 6 Assign a conditional value to a calculated field There will be times when you will want to perform one operation under a certain condition and perform a different operation under another condition. In Access you can do this using the IIf function. The IIf function specifies a condition: –If the condition is true, the operation is performed –If the condition is false, a different operation is performed

7. 7 An IIf statement example

8. 8 Sort and group data in a report Access makes it easy for you to sort your data in the order you want it. You can also group data, which will result in data being sorted within the groups. If you specify that you want a group, you have the opportunity to provide a Group Header and/or Group Footer. The Group Header will usually indicate the name of the group and the footer typically contains a subtotal for the group.

9. 9 The Sorting and Grouping dialog box

10. 10 Add, move, resize, and align controls in a report You can add controls to a report in the same manner as you add controls to a form. Bound controls get their data from a field in a table or query. To add a bound control to a report, click the desired field in the field list and drag it to the report design window. You can then move these controls around according to your design. –Move controls by selecting them and then dragging them to the desired position –Resize a control by dragging one of its selection handles to the desired position –Align several controls by selecting the controls and then right- clicking on one of the controls and selecting the align command

11. 11 Bound controls on a report

12. 12 Modify control properties Each control has a set of properties associated with it. In the case of the label control, the Caption property contains the text that will be displayed in the label. To change any of the properties for a control you must first display the property sheet. You can display the property sheet for a control by right-clicking on the control.

13. 13 Add a subreport to a main report To add a subreport to a report, you use the Subform/Subreport wizard to create the subreport. In order to launch the wizard, you must be sure that the Controls Wizards tool is selected in the toolbox. The subreport will usually consist of data from a related table. If the report is based on a query that uses both tables, you can pull the data from the related table into the subreport.

14. 14 A subreport in Design view

15. 15 A subreport in Print Preview

16. 16 Add lines to a report To provide a visual separation in the report, you may want to add a line to the report. To do this: –Select the drawing tool from the toolbox and position the pointer where you want the line to begin –Hold down the mouse button and drag the pointer to where the line should end, and release the mouse button –To ensure a straight vertical or horizontal line, hold down the Shift key while you drag

17. 17 Add a line to a report in Design view

18. 18 Hide duplicate values in a report When you group items in a report, you may not want to repeat the duplicate values within the group. –For example, if the report is grouped by department, you don’t need to have Accounting printed on each record in that department You can hide these duplicate values by setting the Hide Duplicates property to Yes.

19. 19 Add calculated controls to a report If you want to have a subtotal for the groups in a report, you should add the Sum function to the Group Footer section. If you also want an overall total, you should place the Sum function in the Report Footer section. The Sum function will be placed inside a text box control that you have added to your report in the appropriate position.

20. 20 Add a calculated field to a footer section

21. 21 View a report with duplicated hidden and calculated fields

22. 22 Define conditional formatting rules Sometimes you will want to call attention to a value under certain conditions. You can specify under what conditions formatting would be applied to a control. You can define up to three formats for a control. Any value other than those specified in the conditions will be formatted in the default format.

23. 23 Use the Conditional Formatting dialog box

24. 24 Use domain aggregate functions Domain aggregate functions are used to provide statistical information about a set of records, or recordset. An example of an aggregate function is the Sum function: –The Sum function adds the values in a set of records and places the Sum in a bound control To apply an aggregate function to a table or query, you must use domain aggregate functions. In this case you would use the DSum function: –You need to specify the name of the set of records (the query or table) and which values are to be summed This is only one example of a domain aggregate function. There are several others.

25. 25 Add a domain aggregate function

26. 26 Additional Domain Aggregate Functions

27. 27 Add the date, page numbers, and title to a report Place the Date function into a text box to have the current date printed on a report: –The current date will appear in the report wherever you place the control containing the Date function You may also want to add page numbers to the report: –Insert page numbers into your report and specify several options as to how the page numbers should appear You can add a report title by adding a label control to the Report Header section: –Whatever text you place in the label control will be printed on the report

28. 28 Add a date and page number to a report in Design view

29. 29 A report with date and page number in Print Preview

30. 30 Create and modify mailing labels If you want to create mailing labels (or labels of any kind), you can use the Label Wizard. The Label Wizard will walk you through the selection of the type of label you want and label layout. You can use a table or a query as the basis for the labels.

31. 31 Open the Label Wizard Click Reports in the Access Object bar. Click the New button in the Database window. Click Label Wizard, then click the list arrow to display a list of tables and queries. Select one, and click the OK button to open the Label Wizard dialog box. You can select the label type that you want to print in the first Label Wizard dialog box.

32. 32 Choosing a label type

33. 33 Format your labels