Specifying Columns formatting options
You use the Columns formatting options to control the appearance and formatting of columns in the report.
About this task
You can specify the Columns formatting options in the table in the Columns section of the report. You use the buttons above the table to add or remove columns, open Edit column dialog, and change the columns order.
You can edit the column characteristics in the table or by using the Edit column dialog.
Definable characteristics include column heading, column usage, indentation, width, edit code, and sequence. The Total width of report columns property displays the total width of the tabular data in the report.
Columns formatting options that you define in the Columns section of the report can also be defined in the Main section.
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Num | Specifies the number that identifies the column. This property is used resolve variable references, and to determine how query result columns map to report columns. Enumeration starts from 1. You can change the column number by moving it up or down in the columns list. For this, use the Move Up Column and the Move Down Column buttons. |
| Heading | Use this field to specify the column heading, up
to 40 characters in length. Use the underscore character to create
a multiline heading. Leading underscores are ignored. For example,
FIRST_SECOND is displayed as: |
| Usage | Specify a usage code that will be used to collect summary information about the data in a column, such as total summary information at the end of a column, or partial summaries at control breaks in a table. The usage codes that are available depend on the data in the column and the type of summary. See the online help for more information about usage codes. |
| Indent | Specifies the number of blank spaces to indent from the left of the column. The range is between 0 and 999. |
| Width | Specify the width of the column. The range is between 1 and 32767. If the column is too narrow for numeric data, the data is replaced with asterisks. If the column is too narrow for character or date/time data, the data is truncated (based on the alignment specified). To avoid this, you can use a wrapping edit code to have the data wrap within the column width. See the online help for more information about edit codes. |
| Edit | Specify an edit code, which controls how data is formatted in a report. Edit codes are available for character, date, graphic, numeric, time, timestamp data. Also, user-defined edit codes can be created. See the online help for more information on edit codes. |
| Seq | Specifies the sequence number for the columns in
the report. If two columns have the same sequence number, they appear
in the report in column number order, in the Num field. Note: The
sequence number is ignored in reports using the ACROSS usage code
or if you check the Automatic reordering of report columns check
box.
|