MicrosoftR Office AccessT 2007 Step by Step

8. Working with Reports

Chapter at a Glance

In this chapter, you will learn to:

Create a report manually and by using a wizard.

Modify the design and content of a report.

Add a subreport to a report.

Preview and print a report.

Reports generally represent summaries of larger bodies of information. For example, your database might hold detailed information about thousands of orders. If you want to edit those orders or enter new ones, you can do so directly in the table or through a form. If you want to summarize those orders to illustrate the rate of growth of the company's sales, you generate a report.

Like a book report or an annual report of a company's activities, a report created in Microsoft Office Access 2007 is typically used to summarize and organize information to express a particular point of view to a specific audience. When designing a report, it is important to consider the point you are trying to make, the intended audience, and the level of information they will need.

In this chapter, you will create a report by using a wizard and another by building your own manually. You will learn how to modify the layout and content of a report, and how to embed reports within each other. Finally, you will preview a report as it will appear when printed.

See Also

Do you need only a quick refresher on the topics in this chapter? See the Quick Reference entries on pages xxxixlxv.

Important

Before you can use the practice files in this chapter, you need to install them from the book's companion CD to their default location. See "Using the Book's CD" on page xxv for more information.

Troubleshooting

Graphics and operating systemrelated instructions in this book reflect the Windows Vista user interface. If your computer is running Microsoft Windows XP and you experience trouble following the instructions as written, please refer to the "Information for Readers Running Windows XP" section at the beginning of this book.

Forms vs. Reports

In many ways, reports are like forms; for example:

  • You can create them by using wizards and modify them in a design environment.

  • You can add labels, text boxes, images, and other controls, and set their properties.

  • You can display information from one or more records, or from one or more tables or queries.

  • You can have multiple sets of headers and footers.

Forms and reports have one purpose in common: to give people easy access to the information stored in a database. The main differences between forms and reports are:

  • Forms are used to enter, view, and edit information. Reports are used only to view information.

  • Forms are usually displayed on-screen. Reports can be previewed on the screen, but they are usually printed.

  • Forms generally provide a detailed look at records and are usually for the people who actually work with the database. Reports are often used to group and summarize data, and are often for people who don't work with the database but who use the information stored in the database for other business tasks.

Forms and reports are sufficiently alike that you can save a form as a report when you want to take advantage of additional report refinement and printing capabilities.

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