GENERAL LAYOUT GUIDELINES
The following guidelines can improve performance when creating or changing a report layout:
· Make your non-graphical layout objects (e.g. boilerplate text or fields with text) fixed in size -- that is, set the Vertical and Horizontal Elasticity property of the field to Fixed. In particular, making repeating frames and their contents fixed in size can improve performance. Nongraphical objects that are variable in size require more processing because Report Builder must determine their size before formatting them. Non-graphical objects that are fixed in size do not require this additional processing because their size is already known.
· Make your graphical layout objects (e.g., images and Oracle Graphics objects) variable in size -- that is, Vertical and Horizontal Elasticity of Variable. Graphical objects that are fixed in size usually need to have their contents scaled to fit inside of the object. Scaling an object's contents requires more processing. If the object is variable in size, it can grow or shrink with the contents and scaling is not necessary.
· Specify Reduce Image Resolution for image objects whose size you reduce. (This option is available as a drawing option under the Format menu). When you reduce the size of an image, it requires less information to display it than when it was larger. Reduce Image Resolution eliminates the unnecessary information and reduces the amount of space needed to store the image. This can be particularly useful for large, multi-colored images.
· Make fields that contain text one line long and ensure that their contents fit within their specified width (e.g., by using the SUBSTR function). If a field with text spans more than one line, then Report Builder must use its word-wrapping algorithm to format the field. Ensuring that a field only takes one line to format avoids the additional processing of the word-wrapping algorithm.
· Minimize the use of different formatting attributes (e.g., fonts) within the same field or boilerplate text. If text in a field or boilerplate object contains numerous different formatting attributes, it requires longer to format.
