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Create a Report

Launches the Create a Report wizard which assists you in the process of creating a report for the active table.


Create a Report

Launches the Create a Report wizard which assists you in the process of creating a report for the first active theme in the View.


Create a Report wizard

What type of report do you want to create?

 Quick Report  Provides the ability to create simple tabular reports without the use of Seagate Crystal Reports. You can select what fields to use and change margins, fonts, column widths, and column heights. Quick Reports can be printed, exported to other formats but can not be saved as templates for later use.

 Standard Report  Provides the ability to create basic tabular reports using Seagate Crystal Reports. Standard reports can include graphs, calculated fields and various totals and sub-totals.

 Form Letters  Provides the ability to generate form letters, which include fields from ArcView tables and themes, using Seagate Crystal Reports designer.

 Mailing Labels Provides the ability to generate standard or customized mailing labels from ArcView based data using the Seagate Crystal Reports.

 Top Number (N) Report  Provides the ability to create reports, which identify the top and/or bottom rankings of a particular field within the database (i.e. Top 10 largest Cities in USA), using Seagate Crystal Reports.

 Cross Tab  Provides the ability to create reports which cross-reference data from ArcView to data stored in other databases. A cross tab report summarizes data and presents it in a compact row column format making it easy to analyze the data. Cross tab reports are designed using Seagate Crystal Reports.

 Drill Down  Provides the ability to create reports, which summarize information, based on a particular field (i.e. summarize state sales by district),using Crystal Reports.

 A report based on another template  Provides the ability to use a previously created report as the template for a new report. If you previously created a report for the same table but it included a different set of records, you can use this option to create a report with the same layout and design but with a new selection of records.

Note:  If you did not install Crystal Reports on your system, Quick Reports will be the only report type available.


Create a Report Wizard

What records do you want to include in your report?

Specify whether you want the report to include all the records in the table or only the selected records. If you choose to report on only the selected records, the table will be exported to a new table before the report is created.

Specify a name for the report file

If you selected a report type other than Quick Reports, you must specify an output file name for the report. You can type the name of the report file in the Report File text field or press the Browse button to bring up a dialog that allows you to navigate to the directory where you want to save the report file.

Finish

Press Finish to create the report. If you chose Quick Report as the report type, then the Quick Reports application will be launched. Otherwise, Seagate Crystal Reports application will be launched.

When the Seagate Crystal Reports application is opened, your data will already be loaded and the Create a Report Expert will be invoked. The next step for you is to press Next on the Create a Report Expert in Crystal Reports. This will go to the Fields panel so that you can select the fields to be included in the report. Then you continue using Create a Report Expert in Crystal Reports to complete your report. Refer to the Seagate Crystal Reports documentation for information on how to use the Create a Report Expert.

Note: When Seagate Crystal Reports is launched by ArcView several keystrokes are sent to Crystal Reports in order to initiate the Create a Report Expert. If your system has a sound card, this may cause the Windows exclamation sound to be invoked. You can ignore those warning sounds.


Launch Crystal Reports

Launches the Seagate Crystal Reports application.


Quick Reports

The Quick Reports interface provides basic tools for selection and organization of fields and setting fonts, column widths, and row heights to be used in the report. The general function of Quick Reports is to provide you with the means to create a simple tabular report in a limited number of steps. Additionally, if Seagate Crystal Reports is not installed on your system, you can still use Quick Reports to create report output from ArcView GIS.

Page Layout tab

In this panel you can select which fields you want included in the report, rearrange the order of the fields, change the font and background color of the report, set page margins, and setup the printer.

 Click on the picture below in the area where you want further information.

Column Layout tab

In this panel you can change the width of the columns and the row height.

 Click on the picture below in the area where you want further information.

Note: If you want to save a report created with Quick Reports you can use the Export button in the preview window to export the report to Crystal Reports format.


Page Layout tab

Click this tab to go to the Page Layout panel. In this panel you can:

 select which fields you want to include in the report

 rearrange the order of the fields

 change the font of the report header and report body

 change the background color of the report header and report body

 set the page margins

 setup the printer


Column Layout tab

Click this tab to go to the Column Layout panel. In this panel you can:

 change the width of columns

 change the row height

Note: You must have at least one field selected for display in the report before choosing this tab.


Select fields to display in your report

Click the box next to each of the field names that you want to be included in the report.


Move field to the left

Press this button to rearrange the order in which the fields appear in the report. First click on a field name to select that field and then press this button to move the field up in the list. In the field list shown here, the top field will be the leftmost field in the report.


Move field to the right

Press this button to rearrange the order in which the fields appear in the report. First click on a field name to select that field and then press this button to move the field down in the list. In the field list shown here, the top field will be the leftmost field in the report.


Select All Fields

Press this button to select all the fields for display in the report.


Clear Selected Fields

Press this button to clear all the selected fields.


Printer Setup

Press this button to bring up the Print Setup dialog.


Report Header Design

Click on the Header box to change the font and background color of the report header. After you click on this box, you can use the Change Font button to change the font of the header and use the Report Back Color button to change the background color of the header.


Report Body Design

Click on the Body box to change the font and background color of the report body. After you click on this box, you can use the Change Font button to change the font of the report body and use the Report Back Color button to change the background color of the report body.


Change Font

Press this button to bring up the Font dialog to change the font of either the report header or report body.


Report Background Color

Press this button to bring up the Color dialog to change the background color of either the report header or report body.


Report Margins

To increase or decrease the size of each of the report margins, you can either type a new value into each margin text field or use the up and down arrows beside the text fields.


Preview

Press this button to preview the report. The Quick Report preview window allows you to:

 page through the report

 print the report

 change the printer setup

 export the report to various file formats

 zoom in on part of the report

 search the report

Note: You must have at least one field selected for display in the report before you can preview the report.


Print Report

Press this button to print the report. The report is printed using the options chosen with Print Setup.

Note: You must have at least one field selected for display in the report before you can preview the report.


Exit

Press this button to exit Quick Reports and return to ArcView GIS.


Field

From the Field drop down list, choose the field for which you want to change the display column width.


Column Width

Type in a new column width for the field selected in Field drop down list. You can also use the up and down arrows beside the Width text field to change the column width.


Column Width

Change the display width of a column by clicking on and dragging the separator between two columns. The column to the left of the separator will be resized.


Row Height

Change the display height of the rows in the report by clicking on and dragging the separator between two rows.


Creating Reports

To create a report using the Report Writer extension you must first have tabular data in your project. You can create a report for a table document or a theme. If your project doesn’t already contain tables or themes you must add a table or add a theme before creating a report.

To create a report for a table

1	Make the table document for which you want to create a report active.

2	From the Table menu, choose Create a Report. This will bring up the Create a report wizard which will assist you in creating the report.

To create a report for a theme

1	Make the theme for which you want to create a report active. If there are more than one active themes in the view, the first active theme will be used.

2	From the Theme menu, choose Create a Report. This will bring up the Create a report wizard which will assist you in creating the report.

Create a report wizard

The Create a report wizard that lets you choose the type of report you want, choose whether you want to use all the records in the table or only the selected records, and specify the output report file name. With the Create a report wizard, you can choose one of the following reports types:

 Quick Report  Provides the ability to create simple tabular reports without the use of Seagate Crystal Reports. You can select what fields to use and change margins, fonts, column widths, and column heights. Quick Reports can be printed, exported to other formats but can not be saved as templates for later use.

 Standard Report  Provides the ability to create basic tabular reports using Seagate Crystal Reports. Standard reports can include graphs, calculated fields and various totals and sub-totals.

 Form Letters  Provides the ability to generate form letters, which include fields from ArcView tables and themes, using Seagate Crystal Reports designer.

 Mailing Labels Provides the ability to generate standard or customized mailing labels from ArcView based data using the Seagate Crystal Reports.

 Top Number (N) Report  Provides the ability to create reports, which identify the top and/or bottom rankings of a particular field within the database (i.e. Top 10 largest Cities in USA), using Seagate Crystal Reports.

 Cross Tab  Provides the ability to create reports which cross-reference data from ArcView to data stored in other databases. A cross tab report summarizes data and presents it in a compact row column format making it easy to analyze the data. Cross tab reports are designed using Seagate Crystal Reports.

 Drill Down  Provides the ability to create reports, which summarize information, based on a particular field (i.e. summarize state sales by district),using Crystal Reports.

 A report based on another template  Provides the ability to use a previously created report as the template for a new report. If you previously created a report for the same table but it included a different set of records, you can use this option to create a report with the same layout and design but with a new selection of records.

Note:  Quick Reports will be the only report type available if you did not install Seagate Crystal Reports on your system.

Using the Create a report wizard

1	 Click the radio button for the report type you want to make.

2	If you chose to make a report based on another template, navigate to the template report file using the dialog that appears or type the template report file name into the text field located under the radio button option for a report based on another template.

3	Press Next to go to the next panel of the Create a report wizard.

4	Click the All records radio button if you want the report to contain all the records in the table or theme. Otherwise, click the Only selected records radio button to report on only the selected records. If you choose to report on only the selected records, the selected records will be exported out to a new dBASE file. The exported table will have the same file name as the output report file name but with a .dbf extension.

5	Type an output report file name into the Report File text field or press Browse to display a dialog which allows you to navigate to where you want to save the report file. If you chose Quick Reports for the report type, you will not have to specify an output report file name.

6	Press Finish to create the report.

If you chose Quick Reports as the report type, the Quick Reports application will be launched. You will continue designing your report using Quick Reports.

If you chose any of the other report types, Seagate Crystal Reports will be launched. When the Seagate Crystal Reports application opens, your data will already be loaded and the Create a Report Expert will be invoked. The next step for you is to press Next on the Create a Report Expert in Crystal Reports. This will go to the Fields panel so that you can select the fields to be included in the report. Then you continue using Create a Report Expert in Crystal Reports to complete your report. Refer to the Seagate Crystal Reports documentation for information on how to use the Create a Report Expert.

Note: When Seagate Crystal Reports is launched by ArcView, several keystrokes are sent to Crystal Reports in order to initiate the Create a Report Expert. If your system has a sound card, this may cause the Windows exclamation sound to be invoked. You can ignore those warning sounds.


Creating reports without using the wizard
Creating reports without using ArcView’s Create a report wizard

The Report Writer extension includes a program called ArcViewReports that sends information from ArcView to Seagate Crystal Reports and also contains the Quick Reports application. Without using ArcView’s Create a report wizard, you can invoke ArcViewReports to create a report. All you have to do is write an Avenue script that sends a string to the operating system for execution using System.Execute. You don’t even need to have the Report Writer extension loaded in ArcView. The string for the System.Execute request should contain the following information.

System.Execute(AVReportsPath ++ OutReportFileName + “,” + TableFileName + “,” + ReportType)

1	AVReportsPath. The path to the ArcViewReports executable as a string.
"$AVHOME/reports/avreports".AsFileName.GetFullName

2	OutReportFileName. A file name for the output report file as a string. If you are creating a Quick Report, the output report file name must be "none".

3	TableFileName. The file name of the table that you are reporting on as a string.

4	ReportType. The type of the report you want to make. The report type can be one of:
Quick
Standard
FormLetter
MailLabel
TopN
CrossTab
DrillDown
<pathname of template report>

How to create a Standard Report

Here’s a sample script that shows how to make a report without using ArcView’s Create a Report wizard. This script creates a Standard report called "c:\temp\myreport.rpt" for the active Table document. When this script is run, Seagate Crystal Reports will be launched. When the Crystal Reports application opens, your table will already be loaded and the Create a Report Expert will be invoked. The next step for you is to press Next on the Create a Report Expert in Crystal Reports. This will go to the Fields panel so that you can select the fields to be included in the report. Then you continue using Create a Report Expert in Crystal Reports to complete your report.

theTable = av.GetActiveDoc

if (theTable.Is(Table)) then

  AVReportsPath = "$AVHOME\reports\avreports".AsFileName.GetFullname

  OutReportFileName = "c:\temp\myreport.rpt"

  TableFileName = theTable.GetVTab.GetBaseTableFileName.GetFullName

  ReportType = "Standard"

  System.Execute(AVReportsPath ++ OutReportFileName + "," + TableFileName + "," + ReportType)

end

How to create a Quick Report

Here’s a sample script that shows how to make a Quick Report for the active Table document without using ArcView’s Create a Report wizard. When this script is run, the Quick Reports application will be launched. You will continue designing your report using Quick Reports.

theTable = av.GetActiveDoc

if (theTable.Is(Table)) then

  AVReportsPath = "$AVHOME\reports\avreports".AsFileName.GetFullname

  OutReportFileName = "none"

  TableFileName = theTable.GetVTab.GetBaseTableFileName.GetFullName

  ReportType = "Quick"

  System.Execute(AVReportsPath ++ OutReportFileName + "," + TableFileName + "," + ReportType)

end

How to create a Report based on another template

Here’s a sample script that shows how to make a report based on another template without using ArcView’s Create a Report wizard. This script creates a report called "c:\temp\myreport.rpt" for the active Table document. In this example, the new report is based on a report called "c:\reports\template1.rpt". (Use the name of the template report as the Report Type argument in System.Execute). The template report can be any type of report created using Crystal Reports. When this script is run, Seagate Crystal Reports will be launched and the new report will be opened. The new report will have the same layout and design as the template report but it will based on the current state of the table.

theTable = av.GetActiveDoc

if (theTable.Is(Table)) then

  AVReportsPath = "$AVHOME\reports\avreports".AsFileName.GetFullname

  OutReportFileName = "c:\temp\myreport.rpt"

  TableFileName = theTable.GetVTab.GetBaseTableFileName.GetFullName

  ReportType = "c:\reports\template1.rpt "

  System.Execute(AVReportsPath ++ OutReportFileName + "," + TableFileName + "," + ReportType)

end


Loading the Report Writer

To use the Report Writer extension, you first load it into ArcView--just like you load any other ArcView extension.

To load the Report Writer

1	Activate the ArcView Project window.

2	From the File menu, choose Extensions. This will bring up the Extensions dialog.

3	Check the box next to Report Writer in the Extensions dialog. If you want the Report Writer extension to load automatically every time you start ArcView, press the Make Default button after checking the Report Writer. The next time you start ArcView the Report Writer will automatically load.

4	Press OK in the Extensions dialog.

Once you've loaded the extension, you'll notice a new menu choice called Create a Report in the Table and View user interfaces and a menu choice called Launch Crystal Reports in the Project user interface. These choices allow you to create custom reports using Seagate Crystal Reports.


Frequently asked questions about the Report Writer extension
Questions about the Report Writer extension

What do you need help with?

Why does my system beep when the Seagate Crystal Reports application is opened by the Report Writer extension?

Why are most of the report type options in the create a report wizard unavailable when I try to create a report?

How do I get 8 bit characters to display correctly in my reports in Seagate Crystal Reports?

 How do I change the set of records in an existing report?

Why don't the settings I choose in Printer Setup in Quick Reports get used?

In Quick Reports, what does the error message "No printable fields in control's data - Please correct before running report" mean?


Why does my system beep when the Seagate Crystal Reports is opened by the Report Writer extension?

When Seagate Crystal Reports is launched by ArcView, several keystrokes are sent to Crystal Reports in order to initiate the Create a Report Expert. If your system has a sound card, this may cause the Windows exclamation sound to be invoked. You can ignore those warning sounds.


Why are most of the report type options in the create a report wizard unavailable when I try to create a report?

If you did not install Seagate Crystal Reports on your system, you will only be able to use the Quick Report option. If you want to create other report types you must install Seagate Crystal Reports which is available with the ArcView 3.1 install program. Refer to the ArcView 3.1 installation guide for more details.


How do I get 8 bit characters to display correctly in my reports in Seagate Crystal Reports?

After the report is open in Seagate Crystal Reports, choose Report Options from Crystal Reports File menu. In the dialog that appears, make sure the following options are checked off:

Translate DOS strings

Translate DOS memos


How do I change the set of records in an existing report?

In the Create a Report wizard, "a report based on another template" report type option provides the ability to use a previously created report as the template for a new report. If you previously created a report for the same table but it included a different set of records, you can use this option to create a report with the same layout and design but with a new selection of records.


Why don’t the settings I choose in Printer Setup in Quick Reports get used?

There is a known problem where the settings in Printer Setup in Quick Reports don’t take effect. You can use the printer setup in the Quick Reports preview window to change any of the printer settings instead. In Quick Reports, click the Preview button. In the preview window that appears, click the printer setup button ( the 8th button on the button bar). Change your printer settings here and then click the print button on the preview window.


In Quick Reports, what does the error message "No printable fields in control’s data - Please correct before running report" mean?

If you try to Preview or Print a report in Quick Reports when you have too many fields selected, you will get the following error message:

Error
No printable fields in control’s data - Please correct before running report

In order to Preview or Print the report, you must unselect some of the fields.


What is the Report Writer
What is the Report Writer?

The Report Writer extension integrates the industry-leading Seagate Crystal Reports report generation and editing application with the existing ArcView Table, View and Project user interface. The goal of the ArcView Report Writer interface is to streamline the process of data selection and preparation for the reporting process by providing a wizard that lets you choose the type of report you want, choose whether you want to use all the records in the table or only the selected records, and specify the output report name. Then, the wizard will start the Seagate Crystal Reports application with data from your Table document or theme’s attribute table already loaded so that you can easily continue designing your report.

With the ArcView Report wizard, you can choose one of the following report types:

 Quick Report

 Standard Report

 Form Letters

 Mailing Labels

 Top Number (N) Report

 Cross Tab Report

 Drill Down Report

 A report based on another template

Note: The Quick Reports option does not use Seagate Crystal Reports. The Quick Reports interface provides basic tools for selection and organization of fields, setting fonts, column width, and row heights to be used in the report, and previewing and printing the report. If you don’t have Seagate Crystal Reports installed on your system, you can still create a simple report with ArcView using Quick Reports.