Report Designer: Text Control

Add static text, such as headings, annotations, comments. Set properties to define and style the text.

Note: Many control types are text controls, some of which contain functions instead of plain text. For example, a DB Column control used to display the NAME attribute is a text control with the text “{NAME}”.

Drag an element in the right pane to change its positioning properties, such as height, left, or top.

Text Control Property	Description
Content	Defines static text to be displayed. The text can also be modified in an input field in the upper section of the window or by clicking in the content row in the right pane.
Dynamic Multiline	Prints text with variable height. If the text you want to display is a multi-line text with an unknown number of rows, you need this option to dynamically enhance the section. Without the Dynamic Multiline option, the text would probably be printed into the following section.
Fill Color	Defines a fill color for the text box.
Font	Specifies the font attributes.
Fore Color	Defines the text color. You can either select a color clicking or enter either an SQL statement or a function to specify the color. See also Change Report Colors at Runtime.
Format	Specifies a format, for example 0.000, for numbers. You can use any VB .NET format. See also Text Control: Format.
Locked	Locks the control on the grid. A locked control cannot be moved with the mouse. With this option, you can prevent moving a control unintentionally. Note that you can move a locked control with the Left and Top property by specifying the offset values.
Horizontal Align, Vertical Align	Aligns the text in the text box. Select either left, center, right (horizontal) and top, center, bottom (vertical).
Left, Top	Positions the text box relative to the section borders.
Priority	Controls the drawing priority of text and pictures. For example, this would prevent a picture covering a text control. Controls with a low priority value are drawn first. Example: A picture with priority 10 covers a text with priority 1. Tip: Save and reopen the report to see the result in the preview.
Suppress	Suppresses the control under certain conditions, such as a function or a select statement that produces either True or False (0 or 1). If the condition is True, the text is suppressed. Example: To print the word “Warning” if the status of a tree is “damaged”. Write a function, for example, Fun.Tree that queries the attribute and returns True if the tree is healthy. Enter the Suppress property in braces. For example, {fun.tree}.
Suppress Duplicates	Suppresses the value if it has the same content as the previous one. This property works only in body sections.
Width	Defines the width of the text box. You can align the text content horizontally and vertically, in relation to this box.
Width Text	Specifies formatted attributes for a text export. You can define the width of the text box as number of characters. Additionally, you can align the text to the left or right. See also To export report data.