Format fields in a report

This topic deals with the field properties you use to define the way the data is presented.

The most important field properties are:

• Print field on multiple lines (wrap).
• Font, font colour, bold, italics, underlined, etc.
• Position the field in a frame with a background colour.
• Display text in lower-case or upper-case letters.
• Display amounts with separators for thousands and set the number of decimals.

In the field properties, you can also set up calculation fields.

Specify the font and colour

You can use the toolbar to specify the basic properties of fields and text fields. Most properties will look fairly familiar, because the standard Windows procedures are applied here. With your cursor hover over a button to see the tooltip.

In addition, each element in the layout has its own properties window.

Which fonts you can use in the report generator, depends on the fonts installed in Windows.

To specify the font and colour:

1. Double-click on the field.
2. Go to the tab: Font.

   

   Here you see the familiar properties, including vertical alignment. This last option is not present on the button bar.

3. Specify the settings.
4. Close the window; Profit automatically saves the settings.

Specify the presentation of text

For text, you can specify whether it should appear in upper-case or in lower-case letters. If you think that texts are too long and may be truncated, you can have the text wrap to the next line(s).

To specify the presentation of text:

1. Double-click on the field.

   Profit shows the field's properties.

2. Select the Word wrap and Multiple lines check boxes.  If a text is longer than the field width in the report, Profit will spread the text across multiple lines.

   Using the Increase acc. to contents and Decrease acc. to contents fields, you can determine if the height of a field should be increased or decreased automatically on the basis of the field’s content.

   

3. Go to the tab: Layout.
4. Select the desired formatting.

   

Specify the presentation of numbers and amounts

The fields display values from the Profit database. If you want to deviate from the default presentation of these values, you can change some settings. For example, you can specify the number of decimals and the alignment for numerical fields.

To specify the presentation of field values:

1. Double-click on a field.
2. Go to the tab: Layout.

   

   For a numerical field you can specify the number of decimals and the use of thousands separators. In the bottom box you always see an example of the selected option.

Record the presentation of dates

By default, dates are displayed in the dd-mm-yyyy format. You have two options for changing dates formats:

• You change the field format of a date in the data collection.
• You change the field format of a date in the date field properties in the report.

To change the date format in a data collection:

1. Open the report’s data collection.
2. Select the date field.
3. Change the format.

   

   Profit notifies you that filters on an existing date field no longer work because the field will be converted to a text field. For this reason you should not apply this method if you want to filter by date.

Date format of a report field:

1. Open the report.
2. Put the date field in the report layout.
3. Double-click on the date field.
4. Select the format. The bottom part of the window shows an example of the format.