The Report Designer is the canvas on which the user will create their report. The Report Designer supports standard functionality such as click and drag, re-sizing and Left/Right Clicking with context menus. The Report Designer also contains a toolbar with useful reporting tools and options.
Global Reporting Options / Page Setup. Displays SA Report options such as Page Layout, Default Fonts and other options.
Jump to Next. This button provides a convenient way to navigate between entry fields for operators filling out reports.
Lock Report. When clicked the SA Report becomes static and will no longer receive updates from the tree.
Lock Item Positions. When enabled the items within an
SA report cannot be moved, preserving their location on the page. This is different from locking a single item in a report in that the tables continue to update.
Report Refresh. Refreshes the SA Report with the current values from the tree. This only needed for special calculations such as report tags and callout images that are not fully dynamic or to refresh a section of a report that was locked and could not dynamically refresh.
Connect to Excel. This button offers a direct connection to an new or existing Excel sheet and provides the ability to export specific tables or fields to specific locations within that file without the need for an MP.
The report appearance can be formatted as use the page Global Reporting Options / Page Setup button.
The default fonts used in different entries can be set independently. These come in 3 separate categories:
Tabular entries include object tables, fields and custom tables.
Text entries which include basic text blocks added in a report.
GD&T tables which use a custom GD&T font only.
The Page Setup button provides control over Portrait or Landscape display as well as page size and margin controls.
The Table Styling Option button offers table header color control and grid display options for all object tables in the report.
The engineering grid displayed by default on an SA Report is used for graphical layout purposes and will not print unless you enable the Print Grid option.
The contents of the report header can be formatted to include a logo image and a company byline. To include this information navigate to User Options on the Reporting tab.
To edit the report header or footer content, double click within the crosshatched area to activated it. The size of the region can be con- trolled by selecting the separator line and dragging it up or down on the page. The content within the header or footer is duplicated on all pages within the SA Report.
The display of the separator lines and an option to hide the header and footer on the cover page is available.
Click any open space and start typing to add text. Or paste text from clipboard into any open space.
Additional Object shapes can be added to the report as well to link tables or to highlight particular sections of a table. These objects include:
Box. Which can be used to define any rectangular shape.
Ellipse. Which can be used to define circular objects of any shape or size.
Line. Which also can be set to display as an arrow.
Items in the report can be modified by right-clicking the report item and selecting Report Options. Depending on the item, a context sensitive menu will appear. All items have the following common options: Report Options, Remove from Report, Bring to Front, Send to Back, and Properties.
SA’s approach to reporting has been to provide complete flexibility in placing objects on a page for reporting. Rather than being restricted to a standard sequential table display, each page can be arranged as needed much like a Microsoft PowerPoint slide. Additional auto-arrange functions were added to simplify reporting with large reports.
Set Auto Arrange
Tables within a dynamic report can be positioned dynamically as needed. They can also be placed precisely using right-click page alignment option including Center, Left and Right justified. Object layering is also supported with Bring to Front and Send to Back controls as well as a Remove Object Overlap option.
Large sections of a report can be selected and formatted as needed using the right-click Set Auto Arrange functions. These include:
Set Auto Arrange Start. Establishes a starting point for the selection and auto arrange process. Selection will continue to an Auto Arrange Stop point or the end of the report, whichever comes first.
Set Auto Arrange Stop. Establishes a stopping point for selection and auto arrange.
Select Auto Arrange Block. Selects all the items within the Auto arrange block from start to end.
Execute Auto Arrange. Evenly distributes the tables within the auto arrange block.