Layout area

The Layout area provides the framework for precisely placing where controls are displayed when the document is viewed in different display modes, printed, exported, emailed, and so on.

To add data, drag objects from the Dataset Objects pane and drop them into this area. Depending on the document section that you place controls in, the controls print or display differently.

• Page Header/Footer: prints at the top and bottom of each page.

• Document Header/Footer: prints at the beginning/end of the document.

• Group Header/Footer: for each field in the Grouping panel, prints before and after the Detail Header/Footer.

• Detail Header/Footer: prints immediately before and after each group of Detail sections.

• Detail: repeats for each row in the dataset.

For more information on how data is displayed in each section and steps to hide or change the display of a section, see Understanding and working with document sections

Expand or collapse a section by clicking the plus and minus signs next to its name. Expanding and collapsing a section in this way does not affect the section size in the PDF or whether controls display when the document is viewed as a PDF. It only provides you with more room on the Layout area to design the document.

The Layout area contains an alignment grid to help you control the placement and alignment of controls. You can align the controls automatically with reference to the grid. To toggle the display of the alignment grid, select Alignment Grid from the Tools menu.