In this chapter, we will be working with the ACT! report editor. We won't be covering the running of the reports here other than for testing purposes. We will 'go under the hood' to look at how to create and customize report templates and good practices for creating the report templates. The converting of custom report templates from the ACT! 3-6 versions of the ACT! program is included.
Newcomers to a reporting tool such as the ACT! Reports often try to view the report template as being similar to a word processing document. Reports are very different from word processing documents. With a word processing document you are working directly with the final output or with a master document that can be edited before printing. With report editors such as the ACT! Reports, you are actually writing a program (called a report template), the purpose of which is to extract specific data from a database and format the data for display or printing. The report template can also include...