Customize the Appearance of Your Report

The Report Wizard automatically displays the report in print preview. After you see how the report will look when it’s printed, you can adjust the layout before you print it (for example, you can center the title of the report).

To realign controls in a report, switch to report design view by clicking the View arrow and then clicking Design View.

Guidelines for Customizing Reports

Format headings so that they stand out   Select the text box that contains the category name, and then select formatting options from the Formatting toolbar.

Format Painter button

Copy a format quickly with the Format Painter   Click the control whose format you want to copy, and then click the Format Painter button once to copy the format to a single control, or double-click the button to copy the format to multiple controls. Then click each control you want to format. If you’re formatting multiple controls, click the Format Painter button again to turn off formatting.

Label tool

Add labels for the fields in your report   If the Control toolbox is not visible, click Control Toolbox (View menu) to display it, and then click the Label tool. Position the pointer where you want the upper left corner of the label to appear, and then click to insert the label box. Type text for the label in the box.

Print Preview button

Close button

See how your layout changes will look when the report is printed   After you finish working in report design view, switch back to print preview by clicking the Print Preview button. If you need to make more layout adjustments, click the Close button to return to report design view. Eliminate blank pages   Check to see that the combined width of the report and the margins doesn’t exceed the paper size selected in the Page Setup dialog box.

Next Steps

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Get specific facts about your inventory, such as which products are on order	Evaluate Sales Performance in a Microsoft Access Database