Report worksheet

A Report worksheet is used to design a report that is dynamically generated during runtime (using the current values of the included tags) and then either sent to a printer or saved to a file.

To create a new Report worksheet, do one of the following:

• On the Insert tab of the ribbon, in the Task Worksheets group, click Report;

• Right-click the Reports folder in the Project Explorer, and then click Insert on the shortcut menu; or

• Click New on the File menu, click the File tab, and then select Report Worksheet.

To edit an existing Report worksheet, double-click it in the Project Explorer.

The Report worksheet is divided into two areas:

• Header area (top section), which contains information for the whole group; and

• Body area (bottom section), where you define each tag in the group.

Use the Header parameters on this worksheet as follows:

• Description field: Type a description of the worksheet for documentation purposes.

• Output File field: Type a tag name for the output file where data is stored when you are printing to a file. This field accepts String expressions (tag only). String expressions can also be incorporated into the (using the {tag} syntax).

  For example: report{Day}.out. Where the generated file might be report1.out, report2.out, report3.out, and so on, according to the value of the tag day.

  Note: A report configuration file uses .RCP as the default extension. The Output File field is the file where data is stored.

• Edit RTF file button: Click to access the report as an RTF file, which you can edit for layout modification and so forth.

• Disk Append checkbox: When printing to a file

  • Check the box to add (amend) the new report to the end of an existing file

  • Uncheck the box to replace the existing report in that file with the new report

    Note: When appending an RTF report to an existing file, the file must be a complete RTF document (ending with }). Otherwise, the report is not appended and an error is logged.

• Unicode checkbox: Click (enable) to save the report in Unicode format (two bytes per character) or (disable) to save the report in ASCII format (one byte per character).

• Lock Value into the {Tag/Exp} length checkbox: Click (enable) to automatically truncate the values of Tags/Expressions in the report to fit between the curly brackets, as they are positioned in the Body of the report (see below). This helps to preserve the layout of the report. If this option is left unchecked, the full values of Tags/Expressions in the report will be displayed.

Use the Body portion of this worksheet for report formatting. You can configure a report using data in the system and indicating where to print the tag values. Each tag name will replace the {tag_name} tag name. For Real type tags, use the syntax: {tag_name n}, where n is the number of decimal places you want printed.

If you are using the standard report editor (text only: ASCII or Unicode), the number of characters reserved for the tag value will be equal to the number of characters used to type the tag name (including the two braces). For example, if you configure {TagA} in the report body, reserve six characters for the tag value in the report file. This behavior is not valid for reports in RTF format.

To execute a Report worksheet, use the Report function anywhere an expression is allowed.

Note: After you create and edit a Report worksheet, you can save it with a custom name. The name should not contain spaces, however, because if it does, the Report function will not be able to execute it.