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sql server reporting services : excel formatting problem... could this be a bug?



Jeff
7/29/2005 1:38:01 PM
Okay, I'll try my best to explain this.....

I have a table on my report. Above the header for 5 of my columns, I need
to place a cell that spans all those columns. It looks like this:

----------------------------------
| h |
----------------------------------
| h | h | h | h | h |
----------------------------------
| d | d | d | d | d |
-----------------------------------

h = header row
d = detail row

so, to do this I took the header cell for the left most column and merged it
with the
4 other header cells. Then I put a rectangle into that cell, and drew a
line through the middle to create the two level effect in the single header
cell. Then, where each 'h' is in the above diagram, I put a text box with
some text in it that serves as a label. So, basically all 5 of my detail
columns have their own individual header, as well as a header that applies to
all of them.

When I run the report, and export it to PDF, everything looks great. When I
export to excel, I get a strange effect. SRS seems to want to put the cell
for the textbox in the bottom right most 'cell' in the header in a row below
the other 4 in the second header 'row'.. So, it looks like this in Excel:

----------------------------------
| h |
----------------------------------
| h | h | h | h | |
-----------------------------
| h |
| ----|
| d | d | d | d | d |
-----------------------------------


h = header row
d = detail row

Anybody have any idea what's going on here? If I remove the 5th text box in
the header (the one that's causing the problem), excel formats fine.

It would be nice if I could merge cells across rows as well as columns,
because that would make this problem trivial.

Any help is greatly appreciated.


Jeff
bsod55
9/15/2005 7:47:10 AM
Jeff,

Have you tried inserting a second table header row above the original table
header row? Then do the merging on the inserted header row. I just did this
on a report at my work. Doing so gave me this effect:

| H1 |
|H1|H2|H3|H4|
|D1|D2|D3|D4|

H1 = Table header inserted by me.
H2 = Orginal header inserted by RS
D..= Detail records

To do this right click on the handle for the exisitng table header row and
click Insert Row Above. The formatting stayed when I downloaded the report
to Excel. Hope this helps.

[quoted text, click to view]
Jeff
9/15/2005 8:00:00 AM
Hmmm.

I vaguely remember trying something like this, but maybe I didn't set it up
right. I'll give it another shot. Thanks.

[quoted text, click to view]
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