Microsoft Access 2010 : The AutoReport Feature and the Report Wizard

4/23/2013 4:33:13 PM

To help you create reports, Access provides the Report Wizard. The Report Wizard asks questions about the report and then creates the report based on your answers.

Using the AutoReport Feature

Using the AutoReport feature is the quickest and easiest way to create a report. Access creates a report via the AutoReport feature without asking you any questions. Although you can create this type of report effortlessly, as you will see, it is not very flexible in that it does not ask you any questions.

Create a Report with AutoReport

Here’s how AutoReport works:

1.	Select Tables or Queries in the list of objects in the Navigation Pane.
2.	Select the table or query on which you want to base the report.
3.	Click the Create tab (see Figure 1). Figure 1. The Create tab allows you to quickly and easily create a report based on a table or query.
4.	Select Report. Access creates a report based on the selected table or query.

Create a Report by Using the Report Wizard

Although the AutoReport feature is great at producing a quick report, it does not offer much in terms of flexibility. The Report Wizard asks a series of questions and then better customizes the report to your needs. Let’s take a look at how it works:

1.	Select the Create tab.
2.	Click the Report Wizard tool in the Reports group.
3.	In the first step of the wizard, you select the table or query on which you want to base the report.
4.	Select the fields you want to include in the report (see Figure 2). You can add any type of field to a report. You can also add as many fields or as few fields as you’d like. In fact, you can even include fields from more than one table! Click Next. Figure 2. Step 1: Selecting the fields you want to include in a report.
5.	If you base the report on data from more than one table, the second step of the wizard prompts you to designate how you want to view your data (see Figure 3). Figure 3. Step 2: Designating how you want to view your data.
6.	In the third step the wizard prompts you to select any fields that you want to group by (see Figure 4). Click Next. Figure 4. Step 3: Selecting the fields that you want to group by.
7.	In the fourth step of the wizard you select the desired sort order (see Figure 4.10). You can select either ascending or descending. In Figure 5, I selected ascending. Click Next. Figure 5. Step 4: Selecting a sort order for a report.
8.	In the fifth step of the wizard you select the desired layout for the report (see Figure 6). The layout you select is a matter of personal preference, and which layout will work best with the data you selected for the report. Click Next. Figure 6. Step 5: Selecting a layout for a report.
9.	The sixth step of the wizard prompts you to type the report title.
10.	Click the Finish button. Access creates the report and places you in Preview mode.

As you can see, the Report Wizard offers quite a bit more flexibility than the AutoReport feature. Using the Report Wizard, you can designate the fields you want to include on the report, the data groupings you want to add to the report, the sort order for the report, the layout for the report, and a style for the report. I find that the Report Wizard can generally do most of the work for me. It’s then up to me to add those finishing touches.