## Chapter 7 Formatting Report Content

Formatting is what you do to make a report visually appealing and effective. You format a report, for example, to highlight certain data, change the display of dates, numbers, or currency values, adjust the spacing between report elements, or display data based on a specified condition.

BIRT Report Designer provides many options for customizing the appearance of report elements that you place in a report. Using various formatting properties, you can change the alignment, color, font, size, and other properties of these report elements. You also can add background colors, draw borders around elements, and so on.

If you are familiar with CSS, you can apply your knowledge of CSS properties, because BIRT follows the CSS specification as closely as possible. Many of the formatting properties that you see in BIRT Report Designer are the same as CSS formatting properties.