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Now that we've discussed some of the changes that have taken place in Microsoft Access for reporting, let's talk about how we actually design the report. You will note that creating a report is very similar to creating a form. Once you've learned one, you know them both. Again, ensure you're comfortable with these features before taking the examination. Our goal is to introduce the exam questions, not necessarily to go through a detailed explanation of designing reports. When creating a report, I will again go to the Create Tab, to the Reports Ribbon. If I choose a report, I am very quickly creating a report based on every field in the report. So the Report Button is an automatic report that takes every field from your table. Once I've created the report, I can go into Page Setup and I can change to Landscape or Portrait. I can change my Margins. I can even change the Sizing simply by going to the Page Setup Tab. The Arrange Tab will allow me even more features. I can choose whether the data will be Tabular, whether it will be Stacked or whether I will actually Remove the Sorting Features. You'll need to play with these features to understand the nuances in the background. Now, along with actually using an Auto Format, I can also create a report from scratch. Again, to do so I will go to the Create Tab, to the Reports Ribbon. This time rather than choosing Report, I'm going to choose Report Wizard. It will default to the actual table information that you have open. Since I'm already working with Orders in the background, the default table is Orders. I could, of course, go to the pull-down and choose anything I'd like to. I'm going to choose a Shipping Report. I'd like to know the date that it's been shipped, the ship name, address, city, state and zip. Now, of course, as with the form. a Single Arrow chooses one field at a time, a double chooses all of them and then it removes it one at a time or all of them. When I go to the next screen, I will be asked for a sort order. This is a grouping level. How would you like to see these; grouped by the ship date? Would you like to see it grouped by the ship name? If I'd like to see them organized by the ship date, I simply choose Ship Date and notice that it defaulted to a ship date by month. On the bottom, if I go to Grouping Option, I can clarify that no, I'd rather have them shipped by quarter in groups. The grouping levels will be your indentation on your report. You will need to be familiar with grouping levels when taking the examination. It is the concept that will be necessary and understanding that it can be actually installed during the wizard. When going to the next screen, I will now be asking for a sort order under the group. If I'm grouping by quarter, would I then like to see it by date or does the date order not matter? The next screen; how would you like the layout? Now, you'll notice on the left-hand side that these components represent your group. It's how it'll actually show the actual outlining on the screen. I can choose Portrait or Landscape and on the bottom I can even adjust the Field Width so everything fits on one page. On the next screen now I can simply choose the styling of the report itself. This is personal preference. What you do need to know is that if you're asked to put on a civic style, that you should know exactly where you would find it. On the following screen, what is the title for our report? Would you like to modify the design or preview? Let's go directly to a Preview. By choosing the information on the screen, I can now see the report. Now, notice; I'm getting pound signs for my date. This tells us that our field is not wide enough. In this instance, if I close the Print Preview, I can now go into the Layout View. The Layout View shows me my column and here's where I may choose to just stretch out the column itself. That's the purpose of our Layout View. It allows us to manipulate the column widths right on the screen. If I go back to Design View, I could still accomplish the same thing by choosing the Detail, Ship Date and stretching it out. It is personal preference as to whether you'd like the Design View or the Layout View. What you do need to be aware of is because the Layout View is a new feature, it will be part of the examination. You should be aware of what you can perform in the Layout versus what we perform in Design. Design View gives us much more detail in the layout of the reports. Here we can get to our tools which allow us to add new fields, go to Properties on each of the items. We can add Controls, such as calculations through text boxes, check boxes, groupings, et cetera. We can put in grid lines, we can change our grouping order and we can control our fonts. It is beyond the scope of this class to go into all the detailed features of Design; however, remember again, the prerequisite for the examination is six month experience with the programs. You should be comfortable with what you can do on the Property Sheet. Although there will not be many questions involving the in-depth analysis of the Property Sheet, you need to be comfortable with the variations between the Design View, the Layout View and the Report View.