Have all reports looking the same: template? (1 Viewer)

[Zaxxon]

Hi I have a database with about 20 different queries and each one (at the moment) has it's own report. Each report has a background picture, unique margins, header text/logo and footer information. Making a change now requires me to go through each report and do it 20 times. It's also a bit of a pain to make a new report and ensure everything is aligned the same as the other ones.

Is there a way to make a report template so when I make a new report it creates it based of that? Or so when I edit an item on a report, it will change it on all the other reports.

Also, perhaps this is a different issue, but should I have 1 report with all 20 queries on it? (I tried this but couldn't...and didn't fully understand sub-reports)

I found this thread: http://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=148420&highlight=report+template
But couldn't completely understand it.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you!

 

[zanaeira]

As far as I'm aware there is no standard way to do this. You can create a template, but that will only apply to new reports that you create, and those reports will not change if you change the template (to make a template save a report with the default background etc. with the name "Normal").

I checked out the link to that thread and what it's saying is basically this:

The person uses ONE standard report, and programs it so that when it opens, it checks which report the user would like to see (based on an option on a form), and then it programmatically changes the Record Source of the report. This only works because ALL of the fields in ALL of the reports the guy runs have the same field names.
Otherwise, this approach shouldn't work (at least to my knowledge it shouldn't).

Hope this helps.

 

[Zaxxon]

Great thanks for the information. Being able to have new reports based on a template will be useful.

 

[zanaeira]

No problem.