Previewing Print Output

The print preview facility of the JADE Report Writer Designer application enables you to review your report on your screen before you commit it to print.

When previewing print output, you can browse the report page by page and select a view of the page layout in addition to the actual size view.

You can also search to find text in your report preview, in order to check on details of the report output before reporting. For details, see "Searching Your Report Preview", in the following subsection.

The query result set is saved and reused for reporting in preview. This is done to make the preview more efficient, since complex queries can take many minutes to run and previews are often required to check formatting and layout changes only.

Query results are saved for each report profile rather than each report.

The result set is automatically reused unless new database items are required, under the following conditions.

• A new database item is used in the report design

• The profile selection, group, or sort criteria are changed

• The value of a parameter used in a profile selection is changed

• The report query concurrency strategy, resource, or preview limit options are changed

• You select the Refresh Preview command

The following changes do not require a new query from the database.

• Adding, changing, or deleting a parameter (other than changing the value, as above), script, or summary

• Removing a database item from the report design

To preview a report, perform one of the following actions

• Select the Refresh Preview command from the File menu.

• Select the Preview tab on your Report Designer window.

A preview of the current report is then displayed, as shown in the following image.

A progress dialog is displayed while the print preview is being built. Click the Cancel button to cancel the print preview. The JADE Report Writer Designer application abandons the print preview if it is in the database reading phase or displays the pages that have been built so far if it is in the printing phase.

The report status is displayed on the toolbar above the preview pane. The first status line displays Saved Query, to indicate that the preview is based on a saved query, or Preview from Database, to indicate that the preview is based on data read from the database. The second status line indicates if any preview limits have been reached or if the preview has been cancelled.

To navigate around your print preview display, perform one of the following actions

• To view the previous page before the current page, click the Previous Page button.

• To view the next page after the current page, click the Next Page button.

• To view the first page of the report, click the First Page button.

• To view the last page of the report, click the Last Page button.

You can change the size of your report preview display to gain an overview of the layout.

To alter the size of the display page, perform one of the following actions

• To obtain a view of the whole page, click the Reduce button.

  The button is then displayed with the Expand caption. Click the Expand button to return to the readable display of your print preview.

• With the focus in the print preview window, your cursor becomes a magnifying glass with either a minus sign or a plus sign inside it.

  When the pointer contains the:

  • Minus sign, click in the print preview window to reduce the size of the page view.

  • Plus sign, click in the print preview window to restore the size of the page view.