C H A P T E R 4
Laying Out a Report
Now it is time to delve into the area in the IDE in which you’ll probably spend the most time: the Design
tab. The real creative magic begins here, and we don’t mean because a wizard or two might be involved.
Different report requests and target audiences mean that the look and feel of each report will not be
uniform. One user might expect drill-down functionality, while others might need full, detailed listings
of data for printing. Whatever the case, SSRS provides many tools in the Toolbox for rapid and efficient
building of high-quality reports that can be immediately deployed from within BIDS. In the following
sections, you’ll take the sample data and put it to use as you explore the functionality of each of the
available tools and data regions.
For each object we demonstrate, we’ll give the graphical representation of the design environment
as well as its RDL counterpart. Note that defined sections of the RDL file contain every aspect of a report,
from the general layout to pagination. This is important because it’s often easier to work directly within
the RDL file to alter a report. As we show how to add functionality to the sample report projects, we’ll
point out sections of the RDL files where the graphical report design is converted to code.
Setting Up Pagination
To begin, look at the general report properties for the new report. While on the Design tab, select Report
and then Report Properties from the drop-down menu on the toolbar.
There are four selections in the Report Properties dialog box: Page Setup, Code, References, and
Variables. For now, you’re concerned with the Page Setup selection. As you can see in Figure 4-1, the
Page Setup dialog contains property settings for pagination, such as page width and margins. It’s only
since SSRS for 2008 that we’ve been able to select standard page formatting options such as Portrait or
Landscape orientation. Your selection sets the Width and Height property values automatically. Because
a number of reports will be printed in landscape format, choose Landscape. Leave all margins at 1 inch
each. If you are still on SSRS 2005, you will need to set the height and width properties to represent
Landscape characteristics like 11 inches in width by 8.5 inches in height.