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Report Designer Basics

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Peter Gill edited this page Jun 8, 2026 · 2 revisions

Report Designer Basics

The Report Designer is a Windows application for creating and editing .rdl report files visually. It provides a WYSIWYG layout surface, a properties panel, and a live preview.

The designer window

The designer has three main areas:

A — Design surface (centre): Shows the report bands laid out vertically. Drag items from the toolbox onto a band to add them. Select an item to see its properties. Drag item edges or corners to resize.

B — Properties panel (right): Shows all configurable properties for the currently selected item. Properties can also be accessed by right-clicking an item and choosing Properties, which opens a dialog with tabbed sections.

C — View selector (top menu / F-keys): Switch between three views:

View Key Purpose
Designer F7 Visual layout
RDL Text — Raw XML source of the report
Preview F5 Render the report with live data

Changes in Designer and RDL Text views are kept in sync. Preview runs the report against the data source defined in the report.

Report bands

From top to bottom, a report has these bands:

Band Purpose
Report Header Rendered once at the very start
Page Header Repeated at the top of every page
Body The main data area — tables, charts, etc.
Page Footer Repeated at the bottom of every page
Report Footer Rendered once at the very end

Header and footer bands are optional. Enable them via Report → Page Header, Report → Page Footer, Report → Report Header, Report → Report Footer.

The toolbox

Right-click the report body or a band and choose Insert to access all available items:

Item Use
Textbox Display text, field values, or expressions
Table Tabular data grid with columns and group rows
List Free-form repeating layout (one instance per row)
Matrix Pivot/crosstab — rows and columns from data
Chart Bar, line, pie, area, scatter, and more
Image Static or data-driven image
Subreport Embed another .rdl file inline
Line Horizontal or vertical rule
Rectangle Container or decorative box

Selecting and moving items

  • Click an item to select it.
  • Drag to move it.
  • Drag a corner or edge handle to resize.
  • Ctrl+Click to select multiple items.
  • Arrow keys nudge the selected item by 1px.
  • Delete removes the selected item.

The Properties panel

With an item selected, the right-hand panel lists every property. Key properties for a Textbox:

Property Purpose
Value Expression for the cell content, e.g. ={CustomerName}
Left, Top Position relative to the containing band
Width, Height Item dimensions
Color Text colour — accepts a colour name or expression
BackgroundColor Cell background
FontFamily, FontSize, FontWeight Font settings
Format .NET format string applied to the value
TextAlign Left, Center, Right
VerticalAlign Top, Middle, Bottom
Hidden Boolean expression to show/hide the item

Right-click menu

Right-clicking an item opens a context menu with shortcuts:

  • Properties — tabbed dialog with all settings including Action, Border, Fill, and Format tabs
  • Cut / Copy / Paste
  • Bring to Front / Send to Back — control z-order for overlapping items
  • Add Group Above / Below — (on table rows) add a group row
  • Insert — add an item inside a container (List, Rectangle)

Expressions and the formula bar

Any property that shows an fx button or a ... beside the input accepts an expression. Click it to open the expression editor, which provides:

  • A field picker listing all dataset fields
  • A function reference
  • Syntax highlighting and basic validation

See Expressions and Formulas for the full function reference.

Keyboard shortcuts

Key Action
F5 Switch to Preview
F7 Switch to Designer
Ctrl+Z Undo
Ctrl+Y Redo
Ctrl+S Save
Ctrl+A Select all items in current band
Delete Delete selected item

Numerical formatting

To format a numeric field, set the Value expression using Format():

=Format({Amount}, "C2")         ' $1,234.56
=Format({Amount}, "#,##0.00")   ' 1,234.56
=Format({Ratio}, "P1")          ' 42.3%
=Format({OrderDate}, "yyyy-MM-dd")

Or use the Format property on the Textbox to apply a format string without wrapping the expression.

Saving and the RDL file

Reports are saved as .rdl files — plain XML that you can commit to source control. The RDL Text view lets you hand-edit the XML for changes that are faster in text than in the visual designer (bulk search-replace, copy-paste of repeated sections).

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