Container Control for Enhanced Report Appearance
In This Topic
Let us enhance the appearance of the following report using Container controls.
![Invoice ReportContainer](images/design-reports/report-without-container-control.png)
The Invoice report shown above contains the company logo and the invoice issue information, the shipping and billing information, and the products information.
We will re-create the above report to improve its appearance by using two Container controls. The containers will be placed so as to highlight the two parts of the invoice: the first Container to visually group the company logo and the invoice issue information, while the second Container to highlight the shipping and billing information.
![Container Control-Design](images/design-reports/container-control-design.png)
Design Report Layout
- Drag and drop a Container control onto the design area of the Report Designer.
- Set the following properties to some values, for example: Width, Height, and Color.
- Drag and drop Image controls into the Container and add the company logo.
- To add information on order Id, drag-drop the [OrderId] field from the dataset. Also add text boxes on the container to add the labels 'Order ID:' and 'INVOICE'.
- To highlight the shipping and billing information, drag-drop another Container control and place it below the first Container control. Set its properties to some values, for example: Width, Height, and Color.
- Drag and drop the following data fields from the dataset on the second Container control: [CustomerId], [OrderDate], and [ShipName].
- Now, add text boxes to add labels above the data fields: 'Bill To:', 'Order Date:', 'Ship To:', and 'Ship Address:'.
- Drag-drop the Table data region onto the report designer, below the second Container control.
- Bind the text boxes in the Table's Details row to [ProductName], [UnitPrice], [ProductID], and [Quantity].
- Modify the appearance of the report and preview.
![Container Control-Preview](images/design-reports/container-control-preview.png)
See Also