Mastering Business Analysis with Crystal Reports 9 (Wordware Applications Library)

The first and foremost formatting decision that all report developers must make is whether a report should display in portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) format. In other words, you must decide your page orientation. By default, Crystal Reports always prints in a portrait format.

Page orientation dictates how much information can display horizontally on a report page. Keep this in mind when deciding page orientation for your reports: A landscape format will allow you to fit more report objects on the report.

Try the following to change the page orientation of your report. You can create a new report and select any table you like for this exercise.

1. Select File, Printer Setup from the menu bar.

   A Print Setup dialog box displays, as shown in Figure 5-1.

   Figure 5-1: The Print Setup dialog box

2. Select the Landscape or Portrait option button in the Orientation section.

3. Press the OK button to apply changes and return to the Report Design area.

Your report's page print orientation is now changed. Changing the report layout is simple — even more so if you've used Microsoft products such as Word or Excel. The steps are identical.