Other Properties of a Report

A report has 12 Other properties (see Figure 17.1); these miscellaneous properties, described in the following text, allow you to control other important aspects of a report:

Record Locks

The Record Locks property determines whether Access locks the tables used in producing a report while it runs the report. The two values for this property are No Locks and All Records. No Locks is the default value; it means that no records in the tables underlying the report are locked while the report is being run. Users can modify the underlying data as the report is run; this can be disastrous when running sophisticated reports. If users can change the data in a report as the report is being run, figures for totals and percentages of totals are invalid. Although using the All Records option for this property locks all records in all tables included in the report (thereby preventing data entry while the report is being run), it might be a necessary evil for producing an accurate report.

Date Grouping

The Date Grouping property determines how grouping of dates occurs in a report. The US Defaults setting means that Access uses U.S. defaults for report groupings; therefore, Sunday is the first day of the week, the first week begins January 1, and so on. The Use System Settings setting means that date groupings are based on the locale set in the Control Panel's Regional Settings, rather than on U.S. defaults.

Pop Up

The Pop Up property determines whether a report's Print Preview window opens as a pop-up window. In Microsoft Access, pop-up windows always remain on top of other open windows.

Modal

The Modal property instructs Access to open the Report window in a modal or modeless state. The default is No, meaning that the window will not be opened as modal. A modal window retains the application program's focus until the window receives the user input that it requires.

Menu Bar

The Menu Bar property allows you to associate a custom menu bar with the report that's visible when the user is previewing the report. Adding a custom menu to a report lets you control what the user can do while the report is active.

Toolbar

The Toolbar property lets you associate a custom toolbar with the report that's visible when the user is previewing the report.

Shortcut Menu Bar

The Shortcut Menu Bar property determines what shortcut menu is associated with the report while the user is previewing the report. The shortcut menu bar appears when the user clicks the right mouse button over the Print Preview window.

Fast Laser Printing

The Fast Laser Printing property determines whether lines and rectangles are replaced with text character lines when you print a report by using a laser printer. If fast printing is an objective and you're using a laser printer, you should set this property to Yes.

Help File and Help Context ID

The Help File and Help Context ID properties let you associate a help file and a help topic with a report.

Tag

The Tag property stores information defined by the user at either design time or runtime. It is Microsoft Access's way of giving you an extra property. Access makes no use of this property; if you don't take advantage of it, it will never be used.

Has Module

The Has Module property determines whether a report contains an associated class module. If no code will be included in the report, eliminating the class module can reduce the size of the application database, thereby improving performance. A report that does not have a class module is considered a "lightweight object," which loads and displays faster than an object with an associated class module.

A couple of the Has Module property's behaviors deserve special attention. When a report is created, the default value for the Has Module property is No. Access automatically sets the Has Module property to Yes as soon as you try to view a report's module. If you set the Has Module property of an existing report to No, Access asks you whether you wish to proceed. If you confirm the change, Access deletes the object's class module and all the code it contains.