Specifications

CHAPTER 14 Working with Crosstabs
Users Guide 451
❖ To display blank values in a crosstab as zero:
1 Select the column you want to modify and click the Format tab in the
Properties view.
2 Replace [General] in the Format box with
###0;###0;0;0.
The fourth section in the mask causes a null value to be represented as
zero.
Creating static crosstabs
By default, crosstabs are dynamic: when you run them, InfoMaker retrieves the
data and dynamically builds the columns and rows based on the retrieved data.
For example, if you define a crosstab that computes sales of printers and a new
printer type is entered in the database after you define the crosstab, you want
the new printer to be in the crosstab. That is, you want InfoMaker to build the
rows and columns dynamically based on current data, not the data that existed
when the crosstab was defined.
Occasionally, however, you might want a crosstab to be static. That is, you
want its columns to be established when you define the crosstab. You do not
want additional columns to display in the crosstab at runtime; no matter what
the data looks like, you do not want the number of columns to change. You
want only the updated statistics for the predefined columns. The following
procedure shows how to do that.
❖ To create a static crosstab:
1 In the wizard page or in the Crosstab Definition dialog box, clear the
Rebuild columns at runtime check box.
2 Define the data for the crosstab as usual, and click OK.
What happens
With the check box cleared, instead of immediately building the crosstab’s
structure, InfoMaker first retrieves the data from the database. Using the
retrieved data, InfoMaker then builds the crosstab structure and displays the
workspace. It places all the values for the column specified in the Columns box
in the workspace. These values become part of the crosstab’s definition.