Report Designer - The Properties pane

You can use the Properties pane in Report Designer to easily change the properties of a selected object, or the document as a whole.

The Properties pane should appear automatically in Report Designer. If it doesn't appear, click View, then click Properties.

The Properties window

The options that appear in the properties window depends on if you have an object selected or not. With nothing selected, the properties refer to the document as a whole. If you have an object selected, the properties refer to the object.

View Properties when no object is selected >

Template	Add or remove a template to the document.
Print Template	Choose if you would like the template to print alongside the document.
Watermark	Add or remove a watermark.
Delimiter	Specify the delimiter used to separate fields when exporting as a CSV.
Text Qualifier	Specify the text that will appear either side of a field when exported as a CSV.
Numeric Qualifier	Specify if values are written using their fixed lengths, which are specified in the objects properties.
Fixed Length	Specify if the z-order of the fields are reordered when exported.
Auto arrange Z-Order	Specifies if the Z-Order of the elements are reordered in the CSV file. If true, the order will alphabetic, top to bottom of left to right. If false, the order will match the report.
Include Sections	Select which sections start a new row in the exported CSV file.
Sorts	You can sort the data in your report by a particular variable, or by using an expression
Aggregation	Data aggregation allows you to combine multiple data records before running the report (so you can combine data without using groups).
Filter Expression	Use this to set the filter to apply to the report.
Criteria	Set the criteria to apply to the report.
Include records with no transactions	By default, Report Designer only reports on records that have transactions associated with them. If you want to include records without any transactions, set the Include records with no transactions property to True.
Report tags	You can use report tags to help people find your reports more easily in your software. A report tag is a text label that you can add to your report, and use as a category to group related reports.
Description	You can enter a description for the report.
Name	You can edit the report name here.
Email options	Opens the Email Settings window.
Excel Export Options	Choose which sections of the document are exported to Excel.
Print Scaling	You can set the print scaling to apply to the report. To do this, open Print Scaling, then set the Height and Width values as a percentage (%).
Save Printer Settings	To save the current printer settings with the report, set this property to True. Set this property to False if you don't want to save the printer settings with the report. When the report is printed, it will automatically use the current default printer.
Multi-printer Settings	You can set up multiple printer options for a report.
Security Options	You can secure the document . For example apply a password.
XML Style Sheet	You can use a XSLT style sheet to format (or transform) reports that you export in XML format.

View Properties when an object is selected >

Expression	An expression tells Report Designer what information to include in a report.
Function	Use this to apply numeric functions such as average, count and sum.
Sign	Use this to control the sign of positive and negative numbers, or how credit and debit values are displayed.
Word Wrap	Use Word Wrap to set whether information will wrap onto the next line when it reaches the edge.
Auto Grow	Allows the space allocated to the information to expand or decrease so that it fits on the report.
Style	Apply a defined style to information in your report.
Conditional Formatting	Conditional formatting is used to draw attention to, or ignore, information when a condition is met.
Background	Controls the style and colour of the background behind the information.
Border	Controls the style of the border used for boxes, text boxes, barcodes and images.
Text Style	Set the appearance for text; such as font, size, colour, bold, underline, and alignment.
Formatting	Use Formatting to set date and time formats, numeric properties and fill space formats that are useful when dealing with cheques.
Print on First Copy Only	When printing more than one copy of the document, this option controls whether the information is printed on the first copy only or on all copies.
Suppress Printing	Controls whether the information is printed or not:
Apply Sign After Group	Controls how the total for a group is displayed when it uses the credit or debit sign.
Evaluate Section	Use this to specify what to count when calculating the value of an expression. This is important for aggregate functions such as Sum and Count, as they increase each time the section is generated in the report.
Reset Section	Use this to restart calculating values for a section; otherwise the cumulative value for one section is passed to the next.
Suppress Duplicate Section	Excludes duplicate values from your report on a section by section basis.
Display Names Values	Relevant when dealing with coded variables. Coded variables use a value (0, 1, 2) to represent a status; such as on hold, true or false. Rather than displaying a value, you can display a meaningful description in your report.
Is Cumulative	This property is used with functions. If set to Yes, the value is displayed as a running total; if set to No, the value will be the total for the entire group.
Drill Down	Used to drill down to a further report or web page when previewing the report or viewing it as a PDF file. See Drill down reports.
Visible	Hides information from the report; it will not appear in Designer or Preview modes, or when printing the report.
Locked	Fixes information on a report to stop it from being moved. This is useful when you use pre-printed stationery, as it ensures the information is in the right position when it is printed.
Output Length	The maximum length of the field when it is exported to CSV format. This is useful if you intend to import the CSV file in another application, and the field must be constrained to a certain length.
Name	You can set a name of to the object for use in expressions.
Location	Controls the position of information on your report.
Dimension	Controls the size of the information on the report. Click + to display the height and width properties, then enter the size into the boxes.
Linked position	Link the position of this element to another element in the report, so it will move relative to the other element. You can link the position to any other element, a section or the report margins.
Linked Position Anchor	You can set a linked element's position to be relative to one corner of the other element; e.g. top left or bottom right.
Linked Dimension	Link the size of this element to another element in the report, so it will be resized relative to the other element. You can link the dimension to any other element.
Linked Dimension Anchor	If you have set a Linked Dimension, you can choose to link the width and/or height of the elements.

Access the Properties window

The Properties window

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