By configuring the controls that you have added to your report, you can determine exactly how data appears in the final report
output. An entry field holding price information, for example, can be configured to apply an edited monetary format to a numeric
field. A label containing header information can be given a bold typeface.
Although the principle of assigning properties to a report control is similar to that of configuring screen control properties,
there are some significant differences:
- Each screen control property corresponds to a property entry in the Screen Section definition of the control. There is no
parallel report control definition section; instead, property entries help to define how the procedure code used to print
the control is generated.
- There tend to be fewer properties associated with a report control than with a screen control. Because a report entry field
only displays data, rather than displaying and accepting information, it can’t be enabled or disabled, for example, or have
a minimum or maximum text setting. Likewise, since a report is formatted for a pre-selected page size, resize settings are
unnecessary.
- Report controls can be associated with a print condition that determines whether or not it is printed during any given execution
of the print loop. Similarly, report entry fields have a Print if Repeat property that lets you specify a general rule for how to handle consecutive records that contain the same data. You can either
choose to always print the field (set Print as Repeat to TRUE) or to not print duplicate fields (set Print as Repeat to FALSE).
When you select a control on the report form, the Property window is updated to list the properties specific to that control. To change a property, click in the Value column. In some cases, you can type a new value in an entry field. In other cases, you can either select an option from a
drop-down list or click a button (...) to open a secondary interface used to configure the property value.
More information about the report controls and their properties can be found in The Report Controls and Property Reference.