Specifications

Using the Preview view of a report
200 InfoMaker
Using the Preview view of a report
You use the Preview view of a report to view it as it will appear with data and
test the processing that takes place in it.
❖ To display the Preview view of a report open in the Report painter:
1 If the Preview view is not already displayed, select View>Preview from
the menu bar.
In the Preview view, the bars that indicate the bands do not display, and, if
you selected Retrieve on Preview in the report wizard, InfoMaker retrieves
all the rows from the database. You are prompted to supply arguments if
you defined retrieval arguments.
In external reports
If the report uses the External data source, no data is retrieved. You can
import data, as described in “Importing data into a report” on page 203.
In reports that have stored data
If the report has stored data in it, no data is retrieved from the database.
As the rows are being retrieved, the Retrieve button in the PainterBar
changes to a Cancel button. You can click the Cancel button to stop the
retrieval.
2 Select File>Print Preview from the menu bar and evaluate your report.
For example, scroll the page and page down to new pages to review the
layout and content of the report.
Retrieving data
Where InfoMaker gets
data
InfoMaker follows this order of precedence to supply the data in your report:
1 If you have saved data in the report, InfoMaker uses the saved rows from
the report and does not retrieve data from the database.
2 InfoMaker uses the data in the cache, if there is any.
3 If there is no data in the cache yet, InfoMaker retrieves data from the
database automatically, with one exception. If the Retrieve on Preview
option is off, you have to request retrieval explicitly, as described next.