categories. Sorting order is meant to arrange such information content into numerical or alphabetical order. With groupings the sorting applies to each individual group. The grouping and sorting of information, when applied together, make the report more meaningful and therefore useful to the user of the report.
In order to specify the grouping and sorting order, following procedure is adopted. (i) Click at Sorting and Grouping icon of Report Design Tool bar (This icon is located next to icon for tool box). Immediately, Access responds by displaying the following Sorting and Grouping dialogue box. (ii) The LHS of this dialog box provides a list of fields or expressions that are to be used for grouping and sorting.
In the above dialog box, Type field of Accounts has been chosen as the basis of grouping the information content of trial balance. The group header and footer property is set to Yes to indicate that there is separate header and footer for each group of accounts in trial balance. Fig. .
: Window displaying sorting and grouping dialogue box . . Saving and Exporting a Report After a report is designed, it may be generated to preview its final shape. Both the design and a generated report are saved for future use and reference.
The generated report may also be exported for use by others, as described below: (a) Saving and Exporting Report Object in Access : The design of a report is saved in Access as report object by assigning a particular name. The report object, when opened in access by click action generates the desired report as per design specification. The design may also be exported to another database file of Access. This is achieved by clicking File % Export and then selecting and existing database into which the report design is to be exported.
Access responds by providing a dialog box to give the name by which the exported report is saved in a selected database. (b) Saving as Snapshot : After a report is created, it may be saved in such a manner so as to be