There is nothing implemented like borders around the textboxes. You could draw vertical and horizontal lines (only black and very thin) or do something with Insert → Shapes.
Hello,
Using shapes and lines in Report Builder has some limitations. Please see this post → Base: field decoration (colour, border, …) in reports?
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@RobertG ok, understand, so basically I can create a box and place it under, but I’ve discovered you can’t place objects on top of each other, or is there a setting I can turn of?
You could place the shapes behind the textboxes in a report (Arrange → Send back). If you create a report it seems to work - but when executing the report it will fail. The whole color of the textbox will be ignored.
So the shapes could only be drawn better than the horizontal and vertical line.
I had created reports and added the borders to the reports with macro after executing the report. But the fields in the report had to been set very exact. You could have a look at the German Base Handbuch 7.2 on page 362 for this macro.
@RobertG I can’t, all arrange are gray in the menu, and if I move something over something else, it gets red…
@RobertG If I’m left clicking on a label, and goes to arrange, a “grey” out “no selection possible” is my only option. if I only could get that part to work, I could draw lines and use labels behind…
is that disabled in reports?, it works in forms…
This doesn’t work with label or text field. Only shapes like a rectangle or a circle or something else could be placed in the background.
You could take a rectangle, set the color to white and get a rectangle with a blue border (default color of a rectangle). This could be placed around a text field and also a label field …
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aahh, okey… strange…(since it works in forms) but okey… thx for the information!
Really appreciating it!
It does take some patience but can achieve different effects:
All done with lines and shapes; no macros.
@Ratslinger Well, I’ve got patience… and time, just wanted to know if there was any built-in. thx for the info…
Another option is a different report generator. See → Tried Report generators
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Although not into needing reports have tried a few. Went back to an older system and quickly generated this with Jasper Studio Community (not a current version):
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The border & color are set with:
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Just another option.
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@Ratslinger You’re mention Jaspersoft studios, is that a better report program?
can it work with my base?
Do not know what database you are using. If you read the link containing the report generators you will see that only LO Report Builder works with HSQLDB embedded (also Firebird embedded). If you have a different database, then you can connect from Jasper Studio Community with a JDBC connector. This is also true of the other generators mentioned in the link.
To me most anything is better.
Report Builder is the only kind of report included into Base and LO. All other versions won’t have this kind of GUI to create a report inside of LO.
You could also create reports only by writer and tables or by writer and placeholders. There is also a BaseReportExtension. But all this will need more knowledge about backgrounds and how to generate such a thing.
@Ratslinger @RobertG no wonder why people isn’t using it…
I fixed with rectangles, and finally realized you couldn’t change the line color, and then I changed to lines, and after about 4 hours of work, where I of course saved a few times inside the report editor, the whole shit just crashed, and even thou I had saved it several times, everything was back to the report I saved yesterday…
. apparently save in the editor isn’t enough, you must exit and save again in the “main” program!
I’m so frustrated now that I’ll think I’m going to need to buy a new computer tomorrow (after this one meets my sledgehammer soon…)
I remember old good days, when spcsreg was working without any issues…
I’ve been using a lot of different programs during the years, but this… this… , just that left clicking on something doesn’t display the “delete” command, you got to use the cut, or mark it and use the keyboard…
I mean… basic stuff like lines…, colors… …
sorry, needed to get that out of me…
@Ratslinger I have no idea what database I’m using, libreoffice base took care of that…
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Then you are likely using HSQLDB embedded. On the main Base screen, the Status Bar (bottom line) shows this.
Sorry to hear of your issues. As stated prior, it does take some patience. Yes, you can have differing colors. This may require thicker “lines” but the actual rectangle border does not seem to change:
@Ratslinger Yeah, maybe a need a break, like 2-3 weeks, and then giving it a go again! hehe, thx for having patience with me, and all the help I’m getting is highly appreciated!
Tried to get it to work but all fails. Just get error message that report is invisible and asking to close. Difficult time finding any documentation for this and when I did the demo did not work. It seems to have no updates in many years.
Have found very few occasions to need the report created inside of LO. A button click in Jasper report server generates a current report. Recent recollection was to convert report sections to PDF and email to individual recipient. This is a rare situation. There are other Report Builders having better GUI’s and with much more flexibility. In fact, Pentaho Report Designer has much the same layout as ORB but more functionality.
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The output from other generators can be print file, PDF, HTML,CSV, Excel and other formats (depends upon the generator). Not so with Report Builder.
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No question Report Builder is fine for many needs (I’ve demo’ed that in many answers here) but it lacks sophistication. So for those other needs, there are other solutions.
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Should also note, one can use tables/writer docs with reports generated from AOO. See this → Base Subreports via writer?
As you can see it is a tricky question.
If you put here a little example we can try to do It with macros.
ORB makes complex text tablets, but with the famous system ‘try an error’ we can finish putting borders in the cell you need.
Bye!
You can jump to an specific cell If you know it’s mame, Witch envolves the system ‘try and error’
Problem will be the cell names inside the table. There are defined names inside of the ReportBuilder for each cell you create, but the cell names inside the table will show “A1”, “B1” … So you can’t jump to a special cell to change the border like it is done in the Base Handbuch for a table.