Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Reporting Services

Chapter 6. Report Layout and Formatting

You have numerous options for presenting information in a report. One of the most important factors in report design is to understand these options and to provide an appropriate report layout to meet the needs of your users and their business requirements.

This chapter will introduce the features of report layout and formatting in the following areas. For most of these features, I will provide brief instructions to implement that feature and show some examples:

• Basic report layout types, including the table, matrix, list, and chart reports

• Page layout options for tabular, matrix, list, chart, dashboard, and composite reports

• Report navigation features

• Formatting properties for visually enhancing various reports

• Pagination control

Over the years in some industries, we have been presenting data the same way for a long time. I think this is the case for a variety of reasons. The primary reason is that many of us started out using restrictive tools that only provided limited options. Another reason is that the business community has become accustomed to doing things the same way for a long time, even if there might be a better way. I've become a firm believer in getting the requirements at the beginning of a project. This way, we know up front what kind of reports we are designing, and what a report should and shouldn't do. This chapter is about report design options and the elements you will use in later report design.

I like to shake things up sometimes, ...