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Customizing Display Properties

Ownership

The Director of the Business Support Center is responsible for ensuring that this document is necessary, reflects actual practice, and supports University policy.

Section Objectives

At the end of this section, you should be able to:


Customizing Item Headings

Item Headings

The item heading appears in the Heading field in the wizard. Default item headings are defined by the data administrator in the End User Layer. Items must always be wide enough to display the heading. You can customize the following item heading properties:

Saving Changes to Item Headings: Changes that you make are effective only for the query you are currently viewing. To make the format the default, select
Tools—>Options and then select the format.

Formatting the Headers

To format the column headings in your results window, follow these steps:

Customizing the Data Display


Data displays are customized in the same way as headings, except for numbers and background bitmaps.

Data Format: Depending on the type of data selected, the Format Data window displays the Number tab, Text tab, or Date tab.

Background Bitmap: You can display a background bitmap, such as a company logo, in your report. You can use any bitmap file as a background image. Select Format—>Sheet—>Set Background to select a bitmap.

Item Display Formats

The type of information contained in an item is referred to as the item’s data type. Discoverer supports the following data types:

Saving Changes to Item Formats: As with item headings, changes that you make are effective only for the query you are currently viewing.


Formatting Numbers

You can edit the numbers in the results windows by clicking a button on the toolbar.

Formatting Text

To format the data in the results window, follow these steps:

  1. Point to the data and click the right mouse button. A drop-drown menu is displayed.
  2. Select Format Data. A Format Data window is displayed. You can select the Font, Alignment, Background Color, and Text tabs.

Setting the Background

1. To place an image on the background of your data point to the area of the result windows that you want to change and click the right mouse button. A drop-down menu is displayed.

2. Select Set Background. A window displaying the file system appears. You can select any bitmap file from your file system.

Customizing Display Properties

Display properties are the heading and item display formats for the items selected in a query. You can change the default headings and display formats.

Accessing Item and Heading Properties: To change the item or heading properties of a table or crosstab worksheet, use one of the following methods:

Creating Exceptions


Exceptions

An exception is a visual mechanism to alert you that a value lies inside or outside a predefined limit. An exception applies a visual format to the results and should not be confused with a condition, which removes values based on a condition. Conditions are discussed in the next lesson, “Applying Conditions and Using Parameters.”

Example:  An exception alerts you when a data point lies inside or outside a predefined range of values.

To create a new exception or to modify an existing exception, you use the Exception dialog box, which appears when you click the New or Edit button in the Exceptions dialog box. To display the Exceptions dialog box, select Format—>Exceptions. To create an exception, follow these steps:

  1. Click the New button.
  2. Select the exception item from the first drop-down list.
  3. Select the exception expression from the second drop-down list.
  4. Enter the exception value in the third and fourth drop-down lists. You can use the values provided in the drop-down list, if available.
  5. Select the appropriate display format.

Conflicting Exceptions

You can create many exceptions concerning the same data items. For example, you may have as an exception Burdened Cost Pa Period SUM Expenses> = 3,000, and you have another exception where Burdened Cost Pa Period SUM Expenses is between 4,000 and 5,000. If the two exceptions are turned on at the same time, they conflict because one exception is for all the values over 3,000 and the other is only for values between 4,000 and 5,000. If you select two or more conflicting exceptions inadvertently, a message appears asking you to reselect the exception so that there is no conflict.

Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned how to: