Creating Reports
Report Generator enables the user to create customized reports containing images, data-
base descriptions, measured data, user texts, and graphics. PDF format fi les can be created
directly from NIS-Elements.
When you invoke the File > Report > New Blank Report command, an empty Report
Generator appears. It provides the following tools for working with objects:
- Draw line... - Draw rectangle... - Draw ellipse... - Draw Arrow... * - Insert text fi eld... ** - Insert image from fi le... - Insert Table
- Insert graph
- Aligns the selected objects to the position idicated by the line (left) - Aligns the selected objects to center
- Distributes the objects regularly in specifi ed direction
- Determines whether to apply the align commands relatively to the whole page or to selected objects
Useful reporting tool
Generator buttons
Page 106 Creating Reports
The appearance, behavior and position of inserted object can be changed via the context menu that appears by right-click:
- The Align or Distribute command enables moving objects
within the page or align them to another object.
- The Resize object command enables to resize two objects
to the same size.
- The Bring to front command changes the order of over-
lapping objects and brings the current object to the front.
- The Send to back command moves the object to the bottom
layer.
- The Lock command locks the object disabling any further
changes to it until it is unlocked.
- The Properties command can change object properties
such as: color, background color, border size and color, object size, font (text box), aspect ratio (picture), alignment (text box), and shape (arrow).
* - Please, refer to the Edit>Insert Arrow command for the object properties description. ** - Please, refer to the Edit>Insert Text command for the object properties description.
Working with objects
This is an example of the image properties control. The same dialog window appears every time you double-click an object
inserted to the report. The Load Picture
button enables you to load another picture
to the picture frame.The Line color defi nes
the color of surrounding rectangle. The
Line width defi nes the thickness of sur-
rounding rectangle.The Width and Height
controls show the image dimensions. The
Scale shows the actual scale:original image dimensions ratio (the image must be calibrated to use this feature, e.g. scale 1:1
means, that the image will be printed in the original size).If you check the Show scale bar
box, the scale will be displayed. The position and width of the scale bar can be defi ned. The
Keep aspect ratio of keeps the original width/height proportions of the image unchanged. Object context
menu
Object properties
Creating Reports
There are other possibilities: You can align two objects to the same horizontal or vertical level. Select more objects (e.g. by holding down the CTRL key and clicking with the left mouse button). Then, pressing the „Align or Distribute“>“Align Top“ command from the context menu will align the objects to the same upper-horizontal level. Other buttons will adjust objects in horizontal, vertical or both directions. If you have checked the „Align to Edges“ button (the last button), then the images will be aligned to the edges or the center of the page.The same
can be done using the Resize Objects . Select more objects and select the „master“ object to
which size you want to resize the other objects.
Working with templates
A more advanced task is to create reports, which contain some measured data. You can mea-
sure the data in the interactive measurement mode. Then you can make a report refl ecting
e.g. the mean length value of some objects, the area distribution histogram, or a list of all measured data in a table. For such a task a report template must be created. This template
contains the defi nitions how the report should be dynamically created. The report template,
once stored to the hard disk, can be run at any time on any data set resulting in creation of
reports with up-to-date measurement fi gures.
Invoke the New Template command from the Report menu. An empty report window will
appear. Then insert a text box or a table. Invoke the object context menu and invoke the Data
Source command. The following window will appear:
Creating report templates
Page 108 Creating Reports
Click the Defi ne button. The following window will appear:
- The Data inserted by user option means
that the system will ask you to type text during the report creation. This text will be added to the report. There will be a prompt for text at the time of report generation.
- The System data option enables the inser-
tion of some general data from the system (Date, Logged user or page number). The Macro option enables the insertion of espressions, values, or results of the macro that is running simultaneously. - The
Measurement option enables the insertion of interactive measurement results as already discussed.
- The Database option (displayed only
when creating the report from a database) enables the insertion of a link to a database description. This option is used mainly with database exports and it is recommended to use it with the database export wizard as discussed in the following text concerning the database exports.
Choose the Measurement option and press the Next button. In the next window, you will
have the option to defi ne the data source:
In the left column, choose the interactive measurement feature e.g. Length or Equivalent
Diameter. This feature will appear in the report. Then you can choose Statistics from a set of
values or a particular Value . The Field defi nes the range of data used for the statistics calcu-
lation. The Type of statistics offers: mean value, standard deviation from dataset, median,
Creating Reports