Creating an Excel-like layout for a report

This is how the sections look like when you take the Work Order report into design mode:

When you look a little closer and click on one of the cells, you will notice that when you have a look at its properties, they are the properties of a Shape control. When you select a Shape control in the toolbox and put it on a section you can decide via the property ShapeStyle which type of Shape you are adding.

These are the possible values for the ShapeStyle property of a Shape control:

• Rectangle

• Rounded Rectangle

• Oval

• Triangle

• NWLine

• NELine

• HorzLine

• VertLine

You have to put the Shape control on top of the other controls (labels, textboxes) that contain the actual data. To do this you can select a Shape and bring it to front or send it to back using the Format menu on top of the report designer like this:

Tip

Overlapping controls

As you can see, putting two controls on top of each other can provide an added value. Another example of when this technique is applied is...