Project Analyzer Help - Report options

Project Analyzer reports - Options

Report formats

Project Analyzer supports several report formats. You can get the reports to the display, the printer or a file for your favorite word processor, file viewer, web browser or spreadsheet application.

To select the report format, open the Report options dropdown in the toolbar. You can also use the Options|Report options menu.

Display report

Display report is the default. The output goes to a Display window where you can read it, copy it to the clipboard, save it to a file or print it. Available save file formats in this window are .rtf, .pdf and .txt. Additional file formats are available via the Report to a file option.

Print report

Print reports directly to the printer without preview. The print-out is the same as what you get by printing the Display report. Page numbers are added and long reports are followed by a table of contents. Use the Print setup command in the File menu to define page margins and configure other printing options such as page orientation.

For more control over the looks of a printed report, report in an RTF file and open it in your word processor for editing and printing. Use this method to add custom headers and footers, print in two columns to save some paper etc. You can also print an HTML report or a PDF report if you like their look better.

Report to a file

You can also save directly to a file in several file formats. Project Analyzer will automatically create a new file in your report directory. The default report directory is Project Analyzer\Reports. If you wish to save in another location, select Save next report as... in the menu Options|Report options.

	Viewer	Notes
HTML page	Any Web browser	The HTML generated is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 (and later) and Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (and later).
RTF	Microsoft Word or Windows WordPad	Version 1 RTF file ready for any word processor.
PDF	Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 or later.	The PDF files generated can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 and later. The PDF page size is the same as the current printer page size (defined in Print setup). The page is automatically rotated to landscape mode if the text is too wide for portrait mode.
Text	Windows Notepad or WordPad	Plain text report. If you need plain text reports, it's better to save them directly to a file via this option. You can also save as a .txt file in the Display report preview window, but the report uses less formatting than this option.
CSV	Microsoft Excel	Format to export columnary reports to a spreadsheet. Not suitable for reports that don't put the content in columns.
MHT	Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later	Single-file web archive. Suitable for saving Project Printer output in a single file.

Configure reports dialog

This dialog, available through the Options|Report options menu, allows you to configure viewers, the report directory and the report footer.

Viewer

Project Analyzer lauches a viewer when a report is complete. By default, the Windows file associations are used to lauch the viewer. You can also configure a specific application as the viewer. Write your own command line in the appropriate field. Enclose the application name and path in quotation marks, as well as the file name parameter which is "%1".

Example: "c:\program files\viewer.exe" "%1"

Report directory

This is the directory where new report files will be put. The default directory is Project Analyzer\Reports.

Report footer

Every report has a standard line at the end. This is where you can configure it. Write any string here. You can also use the following special macros.

`%d`	Current date
`%n`	Name of your project, project group or solution
`%v`	Version of your project, as set in VB in project options. Not available in all analyses.
`%p`	Project Analyzer x.x.x (current version number)

The default string is "%p (%d) %n %v", which translates into "Project Analyzer 8.x.x (date) myproject v1.2.3".

Font options

You can pick fonts for your reports by selecting Font options in the Options menu. You can also select the character set. The font size is set automatically by Project Analyzer.

The font options don't affect reports saved as HTML, plain text or CSV. For PDF, only 3 default fonts are supported in the WinAnsi character set. The default fonts are Times-Roman, Helvetica and Courier. Project Analyzer picks one of these fonts to match your current report font selection as closely as possible.

HTML options

HTML reports have additional configuration options. Select Options|HTML options. You can choose from 3 types of configuration settings. You can either utilize the built-in formatting options or configure your own formatting with the help of a CSS file.

1. Built-in options

This group of settings allows quick and simple configuration of fonts and colors.

Font name. Write the name(s) of the font(s) you wish to use for normal (proportional) and fixed text. You can write just one name. Because your preferred font may not exist on the report reader's machine, you can write a secondary, tertiary etc. font name. The names should be enclosed in single quotes and separated with commas, like this: 'Verdana', 'Arial', 'sans-serif'. The browser will pick the first font that is available on the system. It is advisable to write one of 'serif', 'sans-serif', 'monospace' as the last option. The browser will then pick a decent default font if none of your preferred fonts are installed.
Font size. The size you choose here is a base font size for normal text. The reports will contain larger and smaller text. The actual sizes will be relative to the base size.
Style. Normal style uses some colors. Monochrome is good for black & white printers. Pick Colorful if you like more colors.

The settings will actually be stored within the report HTML file in a style block coded in the CSS language. The good news is, you can fine-tune the settings. You only need to know how to write simple CSS. Search the web for CSS tutorials if you wish to learn it.

2. Embed CSS from file

This option allows you to embed your own customized CSS file to a style block in each HTML report. Your reports will be self-contained in that the data and the formatting are in just one file.

3. Link to CSS file

This option allows you to link your own CSS file to each HTML report. This way you keep the formatting in one file. When you need to modify the formatting, you don't need to regenerate the reports. Pick an existing CSS file or write a URL in the textbox. What you write in the textbox will get to the HTML files as such. The URL should point to an existing CSS file that is available on the reader's machine or online so that readers of your reports will be able to view them with your formatting.

Customizing your CSS file

The best way to get started writing your own CSS for options 2 and 3 above is this: Click the button named "CSS to Clipboard", open your text editor (Notepad will do) and press Paste. Save the settings in a .css file. You now have a skeleton of a CSS file to fine-tune and embed or link to.

Reports