Chapter 11. CREATING POWERFUL REPORTS

IN THIS CHAPTER

• USING THE SAME REPORT FOR SUMMARY, DETAIL, AND SUMMARY/DETAIL REPORTS

• USING QUERY BY FORM TO CREATE DYNAMIC GROUPINGS FOR THE SAME REPORT

• THE ELUSIVE FEATURE: CREATING SNAKING REPORTS

• USING DYNAMIC COLUMNS TO CREATE A REPORT OFF A CROSSTAB QUERY

• CHOOSING MULTIPLE TOPICS TO PRINT BY USING THE MULTISELECT LIST BOX

• CREATING A WIZARD-LIKE INTERFACE FOR SELECTING GROUP-BY ITEMS

• FORMATTING REPORTS DYNAMICALLY

For the most part, day-to-day reports are easy to use and don't need any code at all. Even creating reports by using subforms isn't that tough and can be figured out pretty quickly. Some things, however, might not be quite as straightforward and do need a bit of code:

• Using the same report for your summary, detail, and summary/detail reports
  
  
• Creating dynamic groupings for the same report by using a query by form (QBF)
  
  
• Creating reports with snaking columns
  
  
• Using dynamic columns to create a report off a crosstab query
  
  
• Choosing multiple topics to print for using the MultiSelect list box
  
  
• Creating a generic wizard-like interface for single-level grouped reports
  
  

As it does with forms, Access allows you to do whatever you need to do to get the job done when working with reports. Creating versatile reports isn't a problem when you have VBA that you can use behind the report. A good example of this is creating a report that you can use to present data in detail, summary, or both.