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MasterPage

The MasterPage element is an abstract element that defines the basic properties of a page. The derived element, SimpleMasterPage, provides content that appears on the page. The master page implicitly defines a content area. In a single-column report, the content area is the area inside the margins.

The MasterPage element derives from ReportElement, but some of the attributes inherited from ReportElement have a special meaning. The Name property provides the name of the master page and is required. The page name must be unique within the design. Page name is used to create a page sequence, and to associate master pages with report elements.

Since a master page cannot extend another master page, the extends property is ignored.

All property dimensions, such as header and footer and the margins, are expressed in physical units. They do not support pixels or relative units, such as percent, em, or ex.

Extends

DesignElement->ReportElement

Property summary

Inherited properties

comments, customXml, extends, name, userProperties

Style properties

None

MasterPage properties

The following sections describe the properties of the MasterPage element.

bottomMargin

The amount of white space at the margins of each page.

footerHeight

The height of the page footer. This property is ignored in HTML output.

headerHeight

The height of the page header. This property is ignored in HTML output.

height

The height of a custom-sized page. This is a required property if the page type is Custom. This property only applies for custom page sizing.

leftMargin

The amount of white space at the left margin of each page.

orientation

The page orientation. The allowable values for this property are Portrait, Landscape and Auto. Auto is the default. The orientation property is ignored if pageType is set to Custom.

The following table itemizes the choices for this property.

Name
Display Name
Value
Description
auto
Auto
auto
BIRT chooses the best orientation for the report.
portrait
Portrait
portrait
The page is taller than it is wide.
landscape
Landscape
landscape
The page is wider than it is tall.

rightMargin

The amount of white space at the right margin of each page.

style

Name of the style applied to this item. Master pages provide many style properties. The style properties are defined in the ROM Styles Specification. Except for the MasterPage element, all elements inherit their style properties from one of the following three places:

When you set a value for this property, that value overrides any inherited or shared style values.

topMargin

The amount of white space at the top of each page.

type

The page size. The default is US Letter for the US locale and A4 for the rest of the world. BIRT sets the default when a new page is created in BIRT Report Designer. Every page must have a page type.

The following table itemizes the choices for the property.

Name
Display name
Value
Description
custom
Custom
custom
The page size is user-defined
us-letter
US Letter
us-letter
The page size is 8.5 by 11 inches
us-legal
US Legal
us-legal
The page size is 8.5 by 14 inches
a4
A4
a4
The page size is A4 metric

width

The width of a page. This property is only used for a custom page size.


(c) Copyright Actuate Corporation 2006

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