Inserting a Literal

Literal fields enable you to insert your own text into the report.

The most common use of literals is the creation of heading, subheading, and field caption text. For example, the following image shows a literal heading applied to the report header.

To insert a literal

1. Drag and drop the Literal field from the Catalog of Available Fields dialog to your layout. For general details about using the drag and drop procedure, see "Inserting Report Fields", earlier in this section. A rectangular image is then displayed at the point at which you dropped the literal, as shown in the following image.

   

2. To type an entry, click inside the rectangle. A solid box is displayed inside the image, as shown in the following image.

   

   If you change an existing literal field entry (that is, the blue resizing handles are not visible around the field), you need to click twice inside the box (once to select the field and once more to display the solid box). Alternatively, right-click over the field and select the Text command from the popup menu that is then displayed.

3. Type your literal text inside the solid box, as shown in the following image.

   

   To break the current line and begin a new line while you are entering your text, press Ctrl+Enter. A carriage return is inserted and the caret is moved to the beginning of new line underneath the existing text line. In this example, Sales By Customer has been typed into the box. However, the default box is not wide enough to display the full heading.

4. Use the resizing handles (that is, the small blue squares on the perimeter of the field image) to resize the field. For details about resizing fields, see "Inserting Report Fields", earlier in this section.

5. If you want to move the field before you complete its entry, place the cursor inside the field so that the pointer changes to a crossed arrows, click and hold down the mouse button, and then drag the field to a new position and drop it (that is, release the mouse button). For details about moving fields, see "Inserting Report Fields", earlier in this section.

6. Click outside the field to complete the insertion of your literal field.

The field is then displayed with bold delimiters, as shown in the following image.

Change the font of your literal by using the field properties. For details, see "Setting Field Properties", later in this chapter.