Insert Tab

In this section:

You can insert components and controls in a document or active dashboard. The Insert tab contains the Components, Controls, and Pages groups, as shown in the following image.

Insert tab


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Components Group

How to:

You can insert components in a document or active dashboard. The Components group is shown in the following image.

Components group

The components are:

Report

Inserts a report object. You can add reports to the Document canvas that appear when you run the layout. You can either embed or reference reports. Double-clicking a blank report object opens the Report canvas, where you can create and style a report to be used on the Document canvas.

You can also include parameters in a report. The values of the parameters can be assigned with controls that are added on the Document canvas.

Chart

Inserts a chart object. You can add charts to the Document canvas that appear when you run the layout. You can either embed or reference charts. Double-clicking a blank chart object opens the Chart canvas, where you can create and style a chart to be used on the Document canvas.

Image

Inserts an image. You can add an image, such as a company logo, to the layout.

You can insert an image into your document and add a hyperlink to it. After you run your document, and click the image, you can launch a URL, or run a report.

Note: An inserted image must be referenced from a specific directory location.

Text

Inserts a text box. You can add text, such as headings, to your webpage. You can add directions or explanations for your reports and charts.

Line

Inserts a line. You can add a horizontal or vertical line to distinguish between sections of your launch or display page.

Related Information:



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Procedure: How to Format Text in a Document

You may apply various formatting and style options to words and individual text characters within the text object.

Note: Any formatting and styling that you may have applied to individual text strings within the text object will remain unchanged.

  1. On the Insert tab, in the Components group, click Text.

    The pointer changes to a crosshair.

  2. Drag your pointer across the canvas to create a text object.

    A text object with the default text, Enter text, is created.

  3. Highlight the text that you wish to format.
  4. Right-click the text, point to Style, and then click Font.

    The Font dialog box opens.

    Note: You can also access font formatting options in the Properties panel.

  5. Select from the formatting options available. You can change the type, style, color, size, and effect of the font.
  6. Click OK to close the Font dialog box.

The formatting options that you selected applied to the text.



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Procedure: How to Insert a Bulleted List or Numbered List Into a Text Element

To insert a bulleted list or numbered list into a text object:

  1. On the Insert tab, in the Components group, click Text.

    The pointer changes to a crosshair.

  2. Drag your pointer across the canvas to create a text object.

    A text object with the default text, Enter text, is created.

  3. Add multiple lines of text to the text object.
  4. Highlight and right-click the text that you want to include in the list.
  5. In the shortcut menu, select one of the following list options:
    • Bullets
      • Disc
      • Circle
      • Square
    • Numbering
      • Numbers
      • Lowercase Letters
      • Uppercase Letters
      • Small Roman numerals
      • Large Roman numerals

    Note:

    • Alternatively, you can select a bullet type before typing text to begin the list. Pressing enter will begin the next item in the list on a separate line.
    • To change the bullet or number list type of an existing list, place your pointer on the list level you want to change and reselect a bullet or number list type. Selecting None will remove the bullets or numbers for that level and move any nested lists up one level. In order to switch between bullets and numbers, you must first remove the current list option by selecting None and then applying the list option you want.



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Procedure: How to Insert Nested Lists Into a Text Element

To insert a nested list into the text object:

  1. On the Insert tab, in the Components group, click Text.

    The pointer changes to a crosshair.

  2. Drag your pointer across the canvas to create a text object.

    A text object with the default text, Enter text, is created.

  3. Add a list to the text object. For more information, see How to Insert a Bulleted List or Numbered List Into a Text Element.
  4. Place your pointer after a list item.
  5. Right-click, point to Nested List and then select a bulleted or numbered list option.

    A list is started within the current list, allowing you to enter text on that list level.

    Note: Pressing tab while your pointer is on the same line as a list item will move that item one level down, resulting in a nested list. The bullet or number type selected is the next list type in the right-click shortcut menu. For example, if you have a bulleted list that uses the disc bullet type, pressing tab to move an item down one level will cause that nested list to have the circle bullet type.

    You can continue to nest lists within other lists by using the same steps shown above.

    Note: You cannot skip a list level. For example, in order to insert a nested bulleted list or nested numbered list on a lower level, there must be a list one level up from it.


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Controls Group

You can insert controls in a document or active dashboard. The Controls group is shown in the following image.

Controls group

The controls are:

Edit Box

Inserts a text box. You can enter a value in the text box.

Drop Down

Inserts a drop-down list. You can select a single value from a list of supplied values. You can use a dynamic or static list of values for the drop-down list.

List Box

Inserts a list. You can select single or multiple values at one time from a list box:

  • From a single-select list you can select only one value for each time a request is run.

  • From a multi-select list you can select multiple values all at once by holding down the Ctrl key as you select values.

In order to provide multiple values, the procedure must be set up to accept multiple values.

List box values can be dynamic or static.

Radio Button

Inserts a radio button. Using a radio button, you can only select a single value from a list of supplied values. Radio button values can be static or dynamic.

Check Box

Inserts a check box into an active report, active Flash file, or active PDF file. You can select multiple values from multiple check boxes.


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Pages Group

How to:

You can add a new or existing page, Table of Contents, Page Master, or size and overflow in a document or active dashboard. The Pages group is shown in the following image.

Pages group

The commands are:

New

Inserts a new page to the Page Layout canvas. The new page appears below the current page and is named Page layout n, where n is a number that increments by 1.

Note:

  • You can also right-click the Page Layout canvas and select Insert new page after or Insert new page before to indicate where to include the new page.
  • To delete a page, select the page in the Page Layout canvas and press the Delete key on the keyboard.

Existing

Inserts an existing page. This page can contain images, drawing objects, text, page settings, reports, and charts.

To insert an existing page into your document, it must be saved as a procedure and exist somewhere in the WebFOCUS environment.

Note:

  • You can also right-click the Page Layout canvas and select Insert existing page after or Insert existing page before to indicate where to include the existing page.
  • To delete a page, select the page in the Page Layout canvas and press the Delete key on the keyboard.

Table of Contents

You can generate a Table of Contents page that shows a summary of the contents of the document, along with page numbers, and that can be printed with the document.

The entries can link to any component of the compound output (page, report, or graph) and vertical sort field values (BY field values) within each component report. The entries in the Table of Contents enable you to easily navigate to a particular section while viewing the document online.

When creating a compound layout report or a coordinated compound report, you can enable bookmarks available in Adobe® Acrobat® for PDF formatted reports. Bookmarking uses the Table of Contents descriptions, and the Table of Contents page and levels, to show specific reference points in the compound document.

Note: You cannot add a report, chart, image, text, or line object to the Table of Contents page. These commands are disabled when the Table of Contents is selected.

Master

Inserts a Page Master. A Page Master is a page that can be added in the Design View where you can add and edit repeating elements, such as the company logo, or page numbers. Any element placed on the Page Master repeats on every page in the resulting report.

Note: You cannot add a report or chart to the Page Master. These options are disabled when the Page Master is selected.

Overflow

Sets the size and overflow of a report object at run time.

You can control the overflow and relative (vertical) positioning of reports and graphs in coordinated compound documents so that reports fill the entire page, as well as maintain their relative position in the document.

Overflow is defined as the area of a report that exceeds its defined space in the page layout. For example, a multi-page report and a graph can both be added to a single page layout with the graph positioned beneath the report.

The report can flow or fill the page and the graph can be relatively positioned to the report, so it is placed at the end of the document following the complete rendering of the report.

Overflow and positioning options are available from the Properties window and from the Positioning toolbar.

Add Dashboard Bar

Inserts a Dashboard Bar into an active dashboard. A Dashboard Bar is an additional page layout where you can insert controls, reports, and charts that display above the dashboard tabs.

The Dashboard Bar is only available for the active report formatted documents. A Dashboard Bar can be a maximum of one page.

You can insert a Dashboard Bar into active Flash and active PDF formatted documents. However, if you run these documents, an empty page is returned.

Related Information:



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Procedure: How to Create a Page Master
  1. Create a new document, or open an existing document.
  2. From the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click Master.

    The Page Master is added to the document.

  3. Add elements and set their properties.

    Note: Only text, images, and lines can be added to the Page Master.



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Procedure: How to Save a Page Master
  1. Create a new document, or open an existing document.

    The document opens on the Document canvas.

  2. From the Insert menu, in the Pages group, click Master.

    The Page Master is added to the document.

  3. Add components (text, images, lines) and set their properties on the Page Master.
  4. Click Save to keep your changes to the Page Master.


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Procedure: How to Use an Existing Page Master in Another Document
  1. Create a new document, or open an existing document.
  2. From the Insert menu, in the Pages group, click Existing.

    The Open dialog box opens.

  3. Select the procedure file (.fex) that contains the Page Master.
  4. Click Open.

    If a Page Master has already been added to the document, a message appears stating that a Page Master already exists in the current layout. You can respond in one of the following ways:

    • Click Yes to replace the existing Page Master with the new one.
    • Click No to merge the two Page Masters.
    • Click Cancel to use the existing Page Master, instead of the Page Master from the Page Layout template.
  5. Save the document.


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Procedure: How to Create a Table of Contents Page
  1. Create a new document, or open an existing document.
  2. From the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click Table of Contents.

    The Table of Contents page appears in the document.

    Table of Contents is the default title for the page. To edit the title, select the current title and type your new title.

    To style the title, select the text, right-click it, and in the shortcut menu that opens, point to Style, and select from among the following options: Bold, Italic, Underline, or Superscript.

    In addition, you can select Font to open the Font dialog box, where you can set the font, font style, font size, font color, and font effects.

    Note: The text does not wrap and must fit within the width of the overall text element.

  3. Click Run to load your document.

    The Table of Contents appears as the first page in your output.

  4. Click a hypertext link on the Table of Contents page to jump to that section within the document.


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Procedure: How to Control Which Objects Appear in the Table of Contents

Note: The objects that appear in the Table of Contents depend on whether the document is coordinated or uncoordinated. By default, all report, chart, and page layout objects appear in the Table of Contents for uncoordinated documents.

To control which objects appear in the Table of Contents:

  1. Select a report, chart, or page layout object.

    Each object has a TOC description, TOC level option, and TOC Number of sort levels in the Properties panel.

  2. To change the name of the description for the object, type over the TOC description in the Properties panel.

    This description appears in the Table of Contents at run time.

  3. To change the hierarchical order of how the object appears in the Table of Contents, type a TOC level.

    For example:

    0 = the object is not shown in the Table of Contents.

    1 = the object is shown as a first level item in the Table of Contents.

    2 = the object is shown as a second level item in the Table of Contents.

    Follow this sequence for additional levels.

    These levels appear in the Table of Contents at run time.

  4. To change the number of vertical sort fields (TOC levels) that appear in the Table of Contents for the component, use the up or down arrow to adjust TOC Number of sort levels in the Properties panel. If the value designated is greater than the count of BY fields in the component report, then the value defaults to the total count of available BY fields.

    Note: Coordinated reports do not support TOC Number of sort levels within a compound TOC. Those entries are ignored for coordinated reports.

  5. Run the procedure to see the updated TOC description and TOC levels.


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Procedure: How to Use Bookmarks
  1. Create a compound layout that is made up of multiple reports and/or charts.
  2. Use the Properties panel to select each report/chart, and enter a bookmark (Table of Contents) description, or use the default selections.

    Note: The Table of Contents page might or might not be included in the compound document, however, the descriptions and levels that appear as bookmarks are set through these options.

  3. In the Properties panel, from the Properties list, select Compound document.
  4. From the Bookmarking drop-down list, select On.

    Note: Bookmarking is off by default.

  5. Click Run to load your document.

    The bookmark tab is expanded in the PDF output.

  6. Click a bookmark link to jump to that section within the document.

    Note: You can use the shortcut menu to change the bookmark properties.



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Procedure: How to Customize the Overflow for a Fixed Report
  1. Select an object from the Design View.

    The Properties panel shows the available properties for the selected object.

  2. Select Fixed from the Size and Overflow drop-down list.

    Note: Fixed is the default selection. If Not Set is selected, Fixed is used as the default.

  3. Right-click the fixed report in the Design View and select Customize Fixed Overflow.

    The overflow page is added after the page layout in the Design View, displaying a copy of the fixed component (with the original size and position) from the page layout. Scroll down in the Design View until you see the overflow page.

  4. Resize the report to fill the page. You can also reposition the report overflow.
  5. Run the report.

    Note: If the document contains multiple fixed reports, the report output maintains the same size and position as the report objects on the Document canvas.



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Procedure: How to Set the Flowing Report Property
  1. Select an object from the Design View.

    The Properties panel shows the available properties for the selected object.

  2. Click Flowing from the Size and Overflow drop-down list.

    Note: Repeat this step for any surrounding report objects to prevent the overlapping of reports and charts at runtime.

    Tip: When set to Flowing, flow margins are available for the page layout. These margins further enable you to adjust the page so that the report fills each page between the flow margins.

  3. Run the document.

    Note:

    • If the document contains multiple flowing reports, the reports might overlap at runtime. If you want one report to run until completion before the next report begins, you must set the relationship between the reports.
    • If the document contains a flowing report and a chart, the chart might overlap the report at runtime. If you want the report to run until completion before the chart begins, you must set the relationship between the chart and the report.



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Procedure: How to Set Flow Margins for the Page Layout

When using Flowing overflow, each page layout has flow margins. Flow margins are set through the top and bottom margins. Flowing reports utilize flow margins to ensure that all reports fill the page, or the selected portion of the page, and that the header and footer information is preserved in the output.

Note: Flow margins are not available for Fixed overflow.

To set flow margins for the page layout:

  1. On the Document canvas, select a page layout from the Design View.

    Note: Ensure that the report object is set to Flowing overflow.

  2. From the Properties panel, type in a value for the flow margin: bottom property.

    The flow margin bottom value sets the ending vertical coordinate where a flowing report ends on each page.

  3. From the Properties panel, type in a value for the flow margin: top property.

    The flow margin top value sets the beginning vertical coordinate where a flowing report starts on each new page.

    Note: When flow margins are changed from the default value, you can see the flow margins in the Design View of the Document canvas.

  4. Adjust the objects in the Design View between the flow margins and run the report.

    The report fills each page between the flow margins until it reaches the end.



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Procedure: How to Add a New Overflow Page to a Page Layout

Each page layout works independent of any other page layout in the coordinated compound document. This enables you to add a new header and footer for each individual page layout and associated overflow pages. The following procedure describes how to add a new overflow page from the page layout.

You can use any of the following methods to create an overflow page.

The overflow page is added after the page layout in the Design View. You can add reports and charts to the overflow page.

Note: If there is a flowing report component, any flow margins defined on the page layout will also appear on the overflow page. This enables you to move and resize the flow margins and add reports and charts (as header and footer information) around the flow margins.

The overflow page is identified as Page layout n, overflow object, where n is the number of the corresponding page layout.



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Procedure: How to Add Header and Footer Information to the Overflow Page

You can add report and chart components on the overflow page as header and footer information for the overflow data, and position and size the components. You can copy existing components from the page layout, or add new report and chart components. All components added to the overflow page are automatically assigned as fixed components on the overflow page.

Note: The report and chart components added as headers and footers should not generate additional overflow.

  1. To copy an existing report or chart component from the page layout:
    1. Select the component from the original page layout, right-click, and select Copy.
    2. Select Page layout n, overflow object from the Properties panel list, or scroll down in the Design View until you see the overflow page.

      The overflow page appears in the layout.

    3. Right-click the current page and click Paste.

    The component is copied to the overflow page, maintaining the size and position from the page layout.

    Note: If the component was flowing on the original page layout, it is automatically changed to a fixed object on the overflow page.

  2. To add a new report or chart component to the overflow page:
    1. From the Properties panel list, select Page layout n overflow object.

      The overflow page appears in the layout.

    2. Right-click the current page and select New Report or New Graph.

      Note: You can also add these components through the Insert tab.

      The pointer changes into a crosshair.

    3. Drag the crosshair to create a report object or a chart object, and adjust it to the size you want.
    4. Open, import, or reference report or chart information as usual. This behavior is identical to adding a report or chart on the page layout.

    Note: Keep in mind that these objects are acting as header and footer information, so they should not generate additional overflow.

  3. To edit the report or chart component on the overflow page, double-click the object to open the associated tool and apply any styling or data changes.


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Procedure: How to Insert a Dashboard Bar Into the Layout
  1. Create a new active dashboard, or open an existing active dashboard.

    The active dashboard opens in Document canvas.

  2. From the Insert tab, in the Pages group, click Add Dashboard Bar.

    The Dashboard Bar is inserted at the top of the document.

    You can insert controls, reports, and charts to appear in the Dashboard Bar above the dashboard tabs.

    Note: Though the Dashboard Bar can be a full page, it is not recommended that you insert large reports and charts, as this would make the Dashboard Bar appear to be the same size, or larger, than the dashboard.


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