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Making report readable when it is too crowded to read
Answer ID 8371   |   Last Review Date 01/08/2019

How can I make my report readable when a lot of data is included?

Environment

All versions

Issue

A report is run which includes too many values to properly display on the page.  For example, incidents created grouped by Year/Month/Day.  The result is unreadable.

Resolution

To make the table readable, split the report into multiple pages.  Follow these steps to do so:

1.  Open the report in design mode. (With the report selected in the reports explorer, choose "edit".)
2.  Click the "Display" tab in the ribbon.
3.  Click the "Page report" drop down menu, in the options section of the Ribbon.
4.  Choose "More options"
5.  Type "3" in the "Rows per page" box.
6.  Save and run the report
7.  Note that the report is now paginated and the data is readable.

Note that the value in step 5, "Rows per page" can be adjusted as needed.  The chart's size can be adjusted as follows:

1.  Open the report in design mode
2.  Select the chart.
3.  Select the options tab
4.  Select Automatic in the Layout section of the ribbon.
5.  Select the Table Layout drop down menu.
6.  Choose "More options"
7.  Choose "Rows" to adjust the chart's height, "Columns" to adjust width.
8.  For "Rows" and "Columns" choose best fit to have the chart auto-resize, percentage to specify a portion of the page for it to fill, and absolute to directly specify its size by number of pixels.  Unfortunately, the maximum size in either direction is 1000px.

Alternatively, the chart and/or table can be made scrollable by following these steps:

1. Open the report in design mode
2.  For each column, repeat the following:
  a.  Right click heading
  b.  Select "edit format"
  c.  Click width tab
  d.  Select "Best fit"
3.  Click Page Setup tab
4.  Click Width
5.  Click Best fit
6.  Select (click) the chart
7.  Click the options tab
8.  In the layout section of the ribbon, select Automatic instead of manual (it will highlight)


For more information on reports and analytics, see the following answer:
Answer ID 4287: Analytics resources

For an overview of creating a custom report see the following:
Answer ID 2509: Creating a basic custom report.