A Blast from the Past: Emulating Old-School, Green-Bar Reports

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1 A Blast from the Past: Emulating Old-School, Green-Bar Reports Document 2015 Thor Kolner. All rights reserved. Challenge: You don t have to be too old (I hope) to remember reports printing on line and dot matrix printers. With any luck you can still visualize the green bar, or banded, paper feeding through the tracks. Green bar paper wasn t your basic 8 ½ x 11 inch sheet. These were BIG ribbons of continuous paper, feeding out of a heavy box straight into the printer. Each sheet was almost 15 inches wide and 12 inches long. They had alternating bands of green and white running the width of the page. The purpose was to help report readers follow the lines of numbers across long, detailed reports. A lot of people still like banded paper. After they slip on their reading glasses, they can easily scan the rows of data running across the page. Here s the challenge: Green bar paper is getting more expensive and harder to find. Solution While Crystal Reports is designed for modern printers, it can emulate old-school, banded paper reports. You don t need to purchase boxes of special green bar paper. Crystal Reports can mimic it. By utilizing its sectional formatting and advanced functionality, Crystal Reports impresses even the most experienced (read: Old-School) green-bar report readers. And we all know who that is code for. The banding effect can be created using the Crystal Reports Modulus operator (Mod) in the Format Formula Editor of the Section Expert. Skills Required: A. Intermediate level SAP Crystal Reports experience. B. Connecting your Crystal Reports to your database. C. Creating formulas containing Crystal Reports functions. Try It! Print the Crystal Reports Banded Reports instructions. Download the constructionworks.xlt data source from the thorkolner.com web site. 1 P a g e t h o r k o l n e r. c o m

2 How To: 1. Begin by creating a new report using the Standard Report Wizard. 2. Use your data or the ConstructionWorks Purchase Orders table. 3. Add columns like the Supplier and Item_Total to the list of Fields to Display. 4. Click to advance to the Grouping window. 5. Group the report. Here it will be grouped by Supplier in Ascending order. 6. Click to display the Summaries window. 2 P a g e t h o r k o l n e r. c o m

3 7. If necessary, Sum the Item Total field. 8. Click to preview the report. 9. Click to display the Section Expert. 10. Select the section Group Header # On the Common tab, check Hide (Drill-Down OK). 3 P a g e t h o r k o l n e r. c o m

4 12. Select the Details section. 13. On the Common tab, check Hide (Drill-Down OK). 14. Select the section Group Footer # Click the Color tab. 16. Click to display the Format Formula Editor. 17. Enter the following code: If GroupNumber mod 2 = 0 Then crsilver Else DefaultAttribute. 18. Click to close the Format Formula Editor. 19. Click to close the Section Expert. 4 P a g e t h o r k o l n e r. c o m

5 20. Crystal Reports bands every other row in the report. Additional Banding Options The Format Formula Editor can be used to create a variety of various banding alternatives. This includes alternating shading every two rows in the report. Change the Group Footer #1 color formula to: If (GroupNumber + 1) mod 4 = 2 then crsilver else DefaultAttribute 5 P a g e t h o r k o l n e r. c o m

6 To alternate the shading for groups of four summary lines. Use this formula: if (GroupNumber + 3) mod 8 < 4 then crsilver else DefaultAttribute Recap Crystal Reports can be used to create a wide variety of reports, using many different styles. This includes the background shading of a report, including banding or green-bar shading. Using the Section Expert and the Mod function, the iteration of the banding can be controled. The effect can be applied to every other line, or sets of two or more lines. Learning how to use Crystal Reports software to deliver important information enables companies to make easier, more informed decisions. 6 P a g e t h o r k o l n e r. c o m