Working with the Properties Pane (Report Builder 2.0)
Every item in a report, including the report body itself, data regions, images, and text boxes, has properties associated with it. For example, the BorderColor property for a text box shows the color value of the text box's border, and the PageSize property for the report shows the page size of the report.
These properties are displayed in the Properties pane. The contents of the pane changes depending on the report item that you select.
To see the Properties pane, on the View tab, in the Show/Hide group, click Properties.
Changing Property Values
In Report Builder 2.0, you can change the properties for report items several ways:
By clicking buttons and lists on the Ribbon.
By changing settings within dialog boxes.
By changing property values within the Properties pane.
The most commonly used properties are available in the dialog boxes and on the Ribbon.
Depending on the property, you can set a property value from a drop-down list, type the value, or click <Expression> to create an expression.
Changing the Properties Pane View
By default, properties displayed in the Properties pane are organized into broad categories, such as Action, Border, Fill, Font, and General. Each category has a set of properties associated with it. For example, the following properties are listed within the Font category: Color, FontFamily, FontSize, FontStyle, FontWeight, LineHeight, and TextDecoration. If you prefer, you can alphabetize all the properties listed in the pane. This removes the categories and lists all the properties in alphabetical order, regardless of category.
The Properties pane has three buttons at the top of pane: Category, Alphabetize, and Property Pages. Click the Category and Alphabetize buttons to switch between the Properties pane views. Click the Property Pages button to open the properties dialog box for a selected report item.
Technical Background Information
Report Builder 2.0 reports are created using an XML schema called Report Definition Language (RDL).
Before changing properties within the Properties pane, you may want to learn more about RDL properties: see what values are acceptable and understand how they affect the selected report item. For more information, see Properties in Report Builder 2.0.