Chapter 17: Report and Chart Formatting

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As you work with standard reports, you can format different report components to make your report easier to read and to better enable you to identify patterns and exceptions. Many of the formatting options in BusinessObjects are standard for MS Windows–compliant products.

The Formatting Toolbar

While formatting reports, you may want to display the formatting toolbar. From the pull-down menu, select View | Toolbars | Formatting. BusinessObjects automatically anchors the formatting toolbar to the Standard toolbar or other toolbars already displayed. If you wish, you can drag the formatting toolbar to other parts of the screen. Table 17-1 shows the formatting buttons. These commands are also available via the pull-down menus Format | Cell and various tabs.

Table 17-1: Buttons on the BusinessObjects Formatting Toolbar

Button	Name	Function	Cell Format Tab
	Bold	Formats the selected cell as bold.	Font
	Italics	Formats the selected cell as italics.	Font
	Underline	Underlines the text or numbers in the selected cell.	Font
	Align Left	Aligns text and numbers to the left within a particular cell.	Alignment
	Center	Centers the text and numbers.	Alignment
	Align Right	Aligns text and numbers to the right. It is often easier to view numbers right-aligned. When you do this, be sure to align the corresponding column headings to the right as well.	Alignment
	Justify	Spreads the cell contents across the width of the column. This may be useful for cells with a lot of text and/or comments.	Alignment
	Center Across Break	When a dimension is used as a break header, you can format the cell to display one break value, centered across the rows in a table. See Chapter 18, “Breaks.”	NA
	Currency Style	Formats a numeric cell to display the $ symbol.	Number
	Percentage Style	Formats a numeric cell to display a % symbol.	Number
	Million Style	Formats a numeric cell to include a comma as a thousands separator.	Number
	Add a Decimal Place	For each time you click this button, adds one decimal place to the existing cell. If your current cell has two decimal places, it adds on to set the cell format to display three decimal places.	Number
	Remove a Decimal Place	Removes one decimal place from the cell format.	Number
	Decrease Indent	Decreases the left alignment of a text cell by one character position.	Alignment
	Increase Indent	Indents the left alignment of a text cell by one character position. Indents are useful for showing subitems within a dimension.	Alignment
	Border Toolbar	You can customize the border button to display a border format you most frequently use. Alternatively, click the down arrow to launch a smaller toolbar to format the cell border.	Border
	Font Color	Launches a color dialog box to allow you to change the font color for the current cell.	Font
	Background Color	Launches a color dialog box to allow you to change the background color of the current cell.	Shading
	Border Color	Launches a color dialog box to change the border color. The default border color is black.	Shading

You can customize the border button to display a frequently used border format. For example, the following toolbar shows a button that adds an outside border. To display a button that removes all borders from a cell, click the drop-down box next to the border button and select the last cell that displays the tooltip No Border. The No Border button now appears on the formatting toolbar.

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