Why do we use reports?

We use “Reports” to display data from our database, in a proper readable manner and for printing purposes. The data for your “Report” can come from two sources, or rather object types. These are “Tables” and “Queries”.

We have three ways to create a “Report”:

• A first way is by means of the “Report” (1) button.
• A second way is by using the “Report Design” and “Blank Report” (2) buttons. In both cases you open a “Blank Report”.
• A third way and, the most common way is, by clicking the “Report Wizard” (3).

All these buttons can be found under the “Create” tab in the “Ribbon”.

We have three kinds of “Reports”:

• We have “Tabular Report”, we “Columnar Report” and “Mailing-Label Report.” The “Tabular Report” can best be compared to an “Excel Spreadsheet”. Everything is divided into rows and columns. This type of “Report” usually displays several records on one page.
• The “Columnar Report” is used usually when you display only one record per page. For example, an invoice or a brochure.
• And a “Mailing Label Report” is used when we want to print labels.

The “Report”

The quickest and simplest way to create a “Report”, is to select the “Table” or “Query” (1) in the object window and click on the “Report” (2) button in the “Ribbon”. This creates a “Report” (3) with all fields listed in the “Table” or “Query”.

As you see in the image below, all fields do not fit on the page (the dotted lines (4) give the page break which you need to adjust and also adjust each field’s width (5) to get everything to fit in well.

The “Report Wizard”

A second way to create a “Report” with the “Report Wizard” – Select the “Table” or “Query” for which you no longer need to create the form and click the “Report Wizard” button in the “Ribbon”.

This opens the first window of the Wizard. The “Table” which we want to make a “Report” has already been selected (1) in the upper box. If this is not the case with you, select it now.

Then select the fields you want in your “Report” and move them to the “Selected Fields” (2) box.

In the second window in the left box, select the field or fields on which you want to group the data. In this example I choose the “City” field. This places this field at the top of the preview window. You can optionally set a grouping interval.

Click the “Next” button

In the third window of the Wizard, choose the fields from the “Table” or “Query” you want to sort on.

Click “Next”.

In the next window choose the layout and orientation of your “Report”. You also have the option to adjust “Field width”. “Access” will try as far as possible, to adjust the field width to the page. Although it does not always work.

Click “Next”.

In the last window, type a title for your “Report” and choose whether you want to see a preview or if you want to change the design. The later takes you to go to the “Design View” of your “Report”.

The format of the “Report”, is something I can still change later, so I choose the first option, “Print Preview”. I click the “Finish” button.

This brings me to, as expected, a preview of my “Report”:

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