﻿<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"><channel><title>SQLServerCentral / Article Discussions / Article Discussions by Author / Discuss content posted by Adam Aspin  / Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports / Latest Posts</title><generator>InstantForum.NET v2.9.0</generator><description>SQLServerCentral</description><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/</link><webMaster>notifications@sqlservercentral.com</webMaster><lastBuildDate>Fri, 24 May 2013 07:44:47 GMT</lastBuildDate><ttl>20</ttl><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>These posts are great for setting things like colours, fonts etc but is it possible to set options to get the report to scale to fit different screens? (i.e removing the horizontal scroll bar)...</description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Nov 2012 12:54:09 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Loundy</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>HiApologies if this has already been covered (I've checked the postings and can't see it anywhere). Incidently, this is my first posting on this excellent Forum so apologies for any procedure errors!I've already setup the Adam Aspin procedure on 'Centralising Reporting Services Stylesheets' to define the report formatting according to the UserID both at runtime and design-time. However, what I'd like to do is to determine the styles when adding a new report item to an existing report. Because I'm not using the Report Wizard to do this, the StyleTemplates.xml file does not have an effect.Thanks in advance for any ideas.</description><pubDate>Mon, 18 Oct 2010 04:08:43 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Jason S UK</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>[quote][b]MaricopaJoe (10/13/2010)[/b][hr]I normally use a 'template' for all my reports,(http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jhermiz/archive/2007/08/14/60283.aspx)so I'm not sure how this really could benefit me?The really pain is standardizing tablixes for reusability.Naming all those 'textbox1, textbox2 etc, is quite a pain.[/quote]You could add the dataset to your template once, complete with properties pointing to your dataset values, then never have to worry about it again. (that's exactly how we use it)</description><pubDate>Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:49:00 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jcrawf02</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I normally use a 'template' for all my reports,(http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jhermiz/archive/2007/08/14/60283.aspx)so I'm not sure how this really could benefit me?The really pain is standardizing tablixes for reusability.Naming all those 'textbox1, textbox2 etc, is quite a pain.</description><pubDate>Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:40:28 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>MaricopaJoe</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Great article, and discussion posts. I have been using SSRS for years (since it was in Beta) and never thought to do this.Awesome.</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:34:27 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>rdeslonde</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>[quote][b]Daniel Bowlin (10/8/2010)[/b][hr][quote][b]SQLMeat (10/8/2010)[/b][hr]Thanks SPCGHST440,CSS can be used to configure the report manager toolbar, but not the report contents. Here is an excerpt from that very page:[quote]Modifying style sheets has no effect on the appearance of published reports that you run on a report server. In Reporting Services, reports do not reference style sheets. Ad hoc reports that are auto-generated by the report server use style information that is stored as an embedded resource in the report server program files. Reports that you create in Report Designer use the fonts, colors, and layout that you specify in the report definition. Styles are created inline with the rest of the layout.[/quote]Which is quite puzzling. If Microsoft took the time to partially support CSS, why not go full monty!? You still need an alternative way to dynamically style the report contents, which is what we're discussing here. Thanks for your input!:-)[/quote][b]Don't quote me on this [/b]but I think this makes sense.  The Report Manager is a web app that is subject to style sheets.  However I believe the reports are rendered before they get to the report manager and they come to the Report Manager as a kind of package that the Report Manager places into something akin to a web part.[/quote]...couldn't resist...</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:07:49 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jcrawf02</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>[quote][b]SQLMeat (10/8/2010)[/b][hr]Thanks SPCGHST440,CSS can be used to configure the report manager toolbar, but not the report contents. Here is an excerpt from that very page:[quote]Modifying style sheets has no effect on the appearance of published reports that you run on a report server. In Reporting Services, reports do not reference style sheets. Ad hoc reports that are auto-generated by the report server use style information that is stored as an embedded resource in the report server program files. Reports that you create in Report Designer use the fonts, colors, and layout that you specify in the report definition. Styles are created inline with the rest of the layout.[/quote]Which is quite puzzling. If Microsoft took the time to partially support CSS, why not go full monty!? You still need an alternative way to dynamically style the report contents, which is what we're discussing here. Thanks for your input!:-)[/quote]Don't quote me on this but I think this makes sense.  The Report Manager is a web app that is subject to style sheets.  However I believe the reports are rendered before they get to the report manager and they come to the Report Manager as a kind of package that the Report Manager places into something akin to a web part.</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:48:57 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Daniel Bowlin</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Ah, ty. That is LAME. They should give you the option to choose or to even mix and match. :-D</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:25:29 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>spcghst440</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Thanks SPCGHST440,CSS can be used to configure the report manager toolbar, but not the report contents. Here is an excerpt from that very page:[quote]Modifying style sheets has no effect on the appearance of published reports that you run on a report server. In Reporting Services, reports do not reference style sheets. Ad hoc reports that are auto-generated by the report server use style information that is stored as an embedded resource in the report server program files. Reports that you create in Report Designer use the fonts, colors, and layout that you specify in the report definition. Styles are created inline with the rest of the layout.[/quote]Which is quite puzzling. If Microsoft took the time to partially support CSS, why not go full monty!? You still need an alternative way to dynamically style the report contents, which is what we're discussing here. Thanks for your input!:-)</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:20:46 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>SQLMeat</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Not sure if it has been brought up yet, did not have time to go through the previous comments. however: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345247.aspx</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:14:06 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>spcghst440</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>It might seem like a lot of typing at the onset (and it is), but it will save huge time down the road. AND the concept gives me [maybe] even more control over my style elements than using a typical cascading style sheet--anything I can manipulate in my SSRS report via an expression can be styled dynamically. I can pay attention to as much or as little as I want. I like that.I created a process that basically dumps delimited text files into the tables via SQL scripting, so initial population is easy-peasy. Initially coming up with the style sets takes some time, but it's well worth the effort.:w00t:</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 08:28:17 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>SQLMeat</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>This article has been featured several times on SSC and I read it every time.  However I just can't get past[quote]Fourthly it is not possible to define a style which encompasses all the attributes of an object. For instance a font has a font family, colour, size and weight (and this list is not exhaustive). You will have to define a style for each individual element, unfortunately, as this is a limitation of BIDS. However, as there is no limit to the number of functions that you can add to the code tab in the Report properties dialog, there is nothing to stop you having different functions for each type of property that you wish to set dynamically. [/quote]As a result, using styles like this just seems to make me type more.  Typing in one of the standard colors that I use, or font weight, or size, etc. is less typing than the expression to call the code.  The key however, is that I have very standardized reports and I know what settings I want and where, many are already built into my template.Let me end by saying that I love the thinking here, in HTML styles are a way to make things easier to write and maintain.  This is certainly a worthy endeavour for SSRS, but this approach just seems like a bit more overhead than the standard way.</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:43:09 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Daniel Bowlin</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Several people mentioned storing the attributes in the database, then extracting them via a dataset. Barry King has a very nice blog post about this (as a reaction to Adam's article originally being published) [url=http://www.simple-talk.com/content/print.aspx?article=722]here[/url], and we've implemented it at work as described. Works very well, easy to maintain, don't have to touch the reports at all. Only caveat (you'll see it in the comments of the post) is that in header/footer areas you need to map the dataset value to a parameter, but that's simple enough. We actually created a template for the team that includes the style dataset and header/footer elements (like logo, dept header, report name, global rundate, page numbers, confidentiality notice, etc) so that team members creating new reports don't have to do a thing in order to implement the default style. Saves a ton of time.</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 06:49:56 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jcrawf02</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>very informative! Thanks!</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 05:15:43 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Pueee</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Good article... waiting for the rest :-)Brian</description><pubDate>Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:59:35 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>brian118</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Thanks for the post. I think I've located the issue (sort of) in the WinAPI::RGB2int(r,g,b) function call. (BTW, this is all inside Dynamics AX written in X++.) If I pass in red (255,0,0) the returned integer should be 16711680, but it returns 255. The contents of that function are:[code="plain"]static client server int rgb2int(RGBint r, RGBint g, RGBint b){    return r  + g&amp;lt;&amp;lt;#offset8 + b&amp;lt;&amp;lt;#offset16;}[/code]... it looks like something in the #offset8 and/or #offset16 calls that swaps the red and blue channels, so it really evaluates (0,0,255) and returns the integer 255, which is really blue and not red. Vice versa if I pass in blue. If I pass in green, (or any color) with the same red and blue channels, it will work fine because green is (0,255,0) and the swap doesn't affect the returned integer value.Here's the snippet that refreshes my form control (this is on a data source method):[code="plain"]public void refresh(){    Container   c;    int64       r, g, b, y;    int64       bgColor;    str         rgbValue;    str         hexValue;    str         pureBlack    = "000000";    // pure black expressed in hex    str         midLevelGray = "808080";    // flat gray expressed in hex    str         pureWhite    = "FFFFFF";    // pure white expressed in hex    int         pureBlackInt = hex2Int(pureBlack);    int         pureWhiteInt = hex2Int(pureWhite);    real        realR, realG, realB;    real        realRconst = 0.241;    real        realGconst = 0.691;    real        realBconst = 0.068;    int64       luminanceThreshold = 128;   // middle gray (#808080) luminance    ;// Refresh Report Header Font Color    c = WinAPI::RGBint2Con(hex2Int(strRem(mbsbdSSRSTextTagReplacement.RptHdrFontColor, "#")));    r = conpeek(c,1);    g = conpeek(c,2);    b = conpeek(c,3);    realR = any2Real(r);    realG = any2Real(g);    realB = any2Real(b);    // calculate relative luminance    y = any2Int64(sqrt(realR * realR * realRconst +                       realG * realG * realGconst +                       realB * realB * realBconst));    if (!mbsbdSSRSTextTagReplacement.RptHdrFontColor)    {        RptHdrFontColorControl.backgroundColor(pureWhiteInt);    }    else    {        bgColor  = WinAPI::RGB2int(r, g, b);        hexValue = int2Hex(r, 2) + int2Hex(g, 2) + int2Hex(b, 2);//        info(strfmt("_refresh r,g,b: %1,%2,%3 bgColor: %4 hexValue: %5",r,g,b,bgcolor,hexvalue));        RptHdrFontColorControl.backgroundColor(bgColor);        // reset foreground color to contrast background color        if (y &amp;lt;= luminanceThreshold)        {            RptHdrFontColorControl.foregroundColor(pureWhiteInt);        }        else        {            RptHdrFontColorControl.foregroundColor(pureBlackInt);        }    }[/code]... and here is the form control method that actually updates my table...[code="plain"]public void lookup(){    Common      common;    Container   c;    int64       r, g, b;    int64       bgColor;    str         hexValue;    ;    c = WinAPI::RGBint2Con(hex2Int(strRem(mbsbdSSRSTextTagReplacement.RptHdrFontColor, "#")));    // set current r,g,b value for color picker    r = conpeek(c,1);    g = conpeek(c,2);    b = conpeek(c,3);    c = WinAPI::chooseColor(this.hWnd(), r, g, b, NULL, true);    // set new r,g,b value to repaint    r = conpeek(c,1);    g = conpeek(c,2);    b = conpeek(c,3);    if (conlen(c))    {        bgColor  = WinAPI::RGB2int(r, g, b);        hexValue = int2Hex(r,2) + int2Hex(g,2) + int2Hex(b,2);        mbsbdSSRSTextTagReplacement.RptHdrFontColor = strFmt("#%1", hexValue);    }//    info(strfmt("_lookup r,g,b: %1,%2,%3 bgColor: %4 hexValue: %5",r,g,b,bgcolor,hexvalue));}[/code]So, basically, my red and blue channels are being swapped. I just need to figure out how to deal with it! :crazy:</description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:47:03 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>SQLMeat</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Hi John,SSRS always renders the colors specified with #000000 HEX RGB notation properly. What I mean by "properly" is that if you use a tool like MS Paint or Adobe Photoshop and you specify the same HEX/DEC numbers there, you'll get the same colour that SSRS renders. I have no idea how Dynamics does this, but I have never seen SSRS rendering the wrong colours. Please test your colours in Paint and if Dynamics shows a wrong one, you will have to investigate why that is happening.</description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Sep 2010 18:03:43 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Boyan Penev</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I've used this methodology as well and it works great except for one thing; the color palette that Dynamics AX 2009 uses does not seem to match up well with the color palette used by BIDS or SSRS (Report Manager). My AX form, for example, calls the winAPI::chooseColor color picker and changes the form control background to reflect the newly chosen color. When the report renders, though, the colors are interpreted very differently. Hex value #0000FF, for example, shows as red on my AX form, but when the report renders, it is a blue. Some colors look correct, some are way off, and some others will actually display differently in AX, BIDS, AND SSRS (the Report Manager). How do you get around this? I cannot figure out how to designate a particular color palette from my report programmatically to ensure the same palettes are being used.John:blush: Updated 10/8/2010: I found a bug in my code that was causing this anomoly... we're better now.</description><pubDate>Thu, 23 Sep 2010 11:47:59 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>SQLMeat</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Good information. However, imagine there are ~30 odd reports. Single change will trigger modification in ~30 reports. Suggest to use custom DLL, which can be accessed easily using custom code. Check @ [url]http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Development/2803/ [/url]</description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2010 08:02:42 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Vasant Raj</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Very useful article and forum.  Thanks.</description><pubDate>Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:49:33 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Daniel Bowlin</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I do much the same thing in defining standardized colors for different sections of reports, except I use parameters to hold color definitions instead of custom code. For instance, I have a custom report template that contains a parameter 'GrayBarColor' with visibility set to Internal and a default value of '#dbe5f1'. Changing the default value of the parameter changes the color everywhere it's applied.To apply this color to a cell, I simply set the BackgroundColor Expression to '=Parameters!GrayBarColor.Value'. Of course, if I'm setting up alternating graybar rows, it would be something more like '=IIf(RowNumber(Nothing) Mod 2, Parameters!GrayBarColor.Value, 'Transparent")To get the color values (like '#dbe5f1'), I just pick a cell, select the drop-down for the BackgroundColor property in the properties window, select More colors, then tweak the three RGB color values until I get the color I want. When I click OK, the BackgroundColor property value is returned in the above hex format.Sometimes I am given a report mock-up in Excel (complete with colors) and asked to match it in SSRS. It's easy to match the colors - in Excel, I select a colored cell, select the drop-down arrow on the Fill menu icon, select More Colors, and then the Custom tab. This displays the three RGB values of the color, which can be directly applied in SSRS to get the exact same color.I'm really glad to see this series of articles. Like many working with SSRS, I'm a programmer and not a graphics artist. Unfortunately, reports are often judged by there appearance rather than by accuracy of the data.</description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2009 10:36:29 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Chuck Bevitt</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Function ChangeColor(ByVal sTeam As String) As String        Dim sColor As String        Select Case sTeam            Case Is = "A"                sColor = "Red"            Case Is = "B"                sColor = "Aqua"            Case Is = "C"                sColor = "ForestGreen"            Case Is = "D"                sColor = "MediumPurple"            Case Is = "E"                sColor = "Yellow"            Case Else                sColor = "White"        End Select        Return sColor    End Functionwith this one you pass a value from your report that comes from the database in my case a teamand then in some part of your report you add the formula=code.ChangeColor(Fields!R_TEAM.Value)bear in mind that this must be a section related to color eg. background or font color elsewhere the formula would be wasted</description><pubDate>Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:12:17 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Maurizio Urbano</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I'm using Visual Studio 2005 and trying to follow your example; however, once I've created the function and I go to reference it (i.e., =code.StyleColor), it is not being found by the Intellisense engine and consequently the color provided to the function is not returned.  What gives?</description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:17:49 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>djoel</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I'm using Visual Studio 2005 and trying to follow your example; however, once I've created the function and I go to reference it (i.e., =code.StyleColor), it is not being found by the Intellisense engine and consequently the color provided to the function is not returned.  What gives?</description><pubDate>Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:17:09 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>djoel</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>It would be nice to have some dot net assembly that can translate a real CSS style sheet into class functions to be used by Reporting Services.  Because many application developers have to make CSS Styel sheets for the web project anyway.  So simply by copying the same stylesheet to the SSRS report folder, and then we can cover both side, the application side and the reporting side.</description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:26:54 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>jlyeh</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I discuss templates in the third article in this series, which should be published in a couple of weeks.I had no trouble getting templates to work, though - and never saw this error!</description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:02:50 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Adam Aspin</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Have anybody tried out to modify the templates from the wizard?C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\Business Intelligence Wizards\Reports\Styles\en\StyleTemplates.xmlC:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ProjectItems\ReportProject\Report.rdlIf found this here http://beacspeak.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!69043F34B6D40843!125.entryI've been trying to create a new template with the "company colours and styles" or just modify one of the existing, but all i got when i select the template modified in the wizard is an exception error of  the xml</description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:55:41 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>matias.buero</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Instead of writing function/s in multiple reports (code window). We can make an external dll file (assembly) using one of the .NET language and can use that assembly in the report.Start adding attributes method whenever required. Which makes this assembly a utility having almost frequently used attributes covered in it.</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:52:19 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>mohd.nizamuddin</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Excellent article Adam! Looking forward to the other installments.On a side note though I am amazed that you actually like working with Reporting Services. Before using RS, I was developing reports using Crystal Reports XI and I still feel that tool is way better and more user-friendly. Or maybe I haven't exploited Reporting Services enough yet ...</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:04:14 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>salman.samad</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>[quote][b]e.j.egan (2/26/2009)[/b][hr]One other drawback however is that you can't visibly see the colors from the layout view...which when you have a lot going on in a layout can be confusing (you always have to preview to ensure you have everything. [/quote]I began using the styling-stored-in-database approach about a year ago, but for the reason mentioned here I dropped it shortly after. While you're designing a report, if you've got font names, sizes, colours, etc. being pulled from a dataset using expressions, all you have on screen in Layout mode is a generic-looking template, which doesn't give you a true sense of the way a page full of content will be laid out when viewed.However I still like to have company logos stored in a database and rendered in my report headers from a dataset.Anyway, I like where you're going with this, Adam, and will look forward to reading more.David</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:01:07 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>David Fremantle</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Sure, I wouldn't mind doing it. It would allow report authors to choose the method that suits them better. I will send you a draft when I am ready.</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:23:07 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Boyan Penev</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>I find that it works better to put my key/value pairs into a resx file and then reference the resource key to get the desired colour.  This way it's easier to manage your styles and they can be properly localized.  Defining your colours in code seems kind of awkward.</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:57:53 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>graeme.hill</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Thanks for the info.  I applied it to an RDL template I created and saved.  One other drawback however is that you can't visibly see the colors from the layout view...which when you have a lot going on in a layout can be confusing (you always have to preview to ensure you have everything. I'll continue working with this for my borders colors and styles which, in my world, are more cumbersome.</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:49:28 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>e.j.egan</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Hey, this is great stuff!  I eagerly await the articles on using an external stylesheet and also using styles values stored in the DB.Thank you so much for these ideas!</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:25:04 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>sing4you</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>This is a good approach but I think that taking the styles into a stored proc or data base for that matter and then using them in the report is a better option. That way the maintenance become much more easier because you just have to alter the SP rather than opening each report in BIDS and changing it. :)</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:10:21 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Gurpreet Atwal</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>[quote][b]Adam Aspin (2/26/2009)[/b][hr]Thanks to both of you for this one - this is a very good idea that I have not covered it in this way in the following articles so would one of you like to post this as an addition to this "mini-series" to extend the tips and techniques offered?[/quote]I've not put it into action yet.Coincidently It was yesterday when I was looking at methods of maintaining consistant colouring when using graphs. I ended up creating some tables and associating colours with categories so when several graphs/charts are on the same report the same category e.g. "bikes" will always be shown using the same colour e.g. "red". Then one legend can be used for several charts.The concept should be farly easy to extend to other report properties. Image locations for brandingfonts, font colors, weights etc... for consistant titleingcolour schemes The final adaptation ties in with using dynamic colours for graphs i.e. using hex values rather than the names for the colours.Doing it this way gives an option for starting with a base colour - defined as a hex value, then adding or subtracting to the RGB components to give a spread of colours from the base colourPS. If you're benched at the moment then you've probably got a lot more time than me to work on an article ;)</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:08:59 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Samuel Vella</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Nice article - nothing revolutionary, just good relevant practical advice on making life easier.  Look forward to the next installments.David McKinney.</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:05:18 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>David McKinney</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Thanks to both of you for this one - this is a very good idea that I have not covered it in this way in the following articles so would one of you like to post this as an addition to this "mini-series" to extend the tips and techniques offered?</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:46:34 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Adam Aspin</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>[quote][b]Boyan Penev (2/26/2009)[/b][hr]There is another way to apply "styles" to a report - by storing the report attributes, such as colour, in a database table and then retrieving them in a data set - either together with the data or just as a separate data set. Then you can either use them directly as Fields collection items or by creating parameters, which can be used in any report element regardless of the data set assigned to it. This overcomes some of the limitations that are listed in the article.[/quote]I was just about to post with the very same thing!Storing as much of the style properties in a database as possible... then styles can be updated without having to republish any reports</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:11:36 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Samuel Vella</dc:creator></item><item><title>RE: Add Styles to Your Reporting Services Reports</title><link>http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic664805-1497-1.aspx</link><description>Absolutely - this makes centralising styles really easy - and is handled in the third article in the series (where you will see how to add these classes to templates too)!</description><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:31:44 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Adam Aspin</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>