Choose Format (Report Designer)

Use the Choose Format dialog box to specify a text box format. This dialog box opens when you click the ellipsis button (...) in the Format tab of the Textbox Properties dialog box. This is the recommended way of setting the format properties for the contents of a text box containing data of a single data type.

However, if you need more control over the contents because you are combining data types, right-click the text box and select Expression (Fx). You can then use the String.Format function to control the text box contents.

Options

• Standard
  Select the data format to use for values that appear in the text box. Valid values include Default, Number, Date, Time, Percentage, and Currency. Select a format and an example, and then click OK. For example, N0 specifies no decimal places.

  For more information about the types of formatting codes available and how to create custom formatting strings, see "Standard Numeric Format Strings" in the .NET Framework SDK documentation at msdn.microsoft.com.

• Custom
  Select Custom to specify a custom format code. You can modify the values of the standard format codes and see the results in the Sample box or click the function button (fx) to use the Edit Selected Dataset dialog box to build a custom formatting string. For example, to modify an existing format code to specify the number of decimal places, select Custom and type a custom a formatting string.

• Sample
  Displays an example of how the value looks when formatted in the code you specify.

See Also

Reference

Report Designer F1 Help
Textbox Properties (Format Tab, Report Designer)

Other Resources

Adding a Text Box
Format Element (RDL)

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2005 Assistance

Change History