With the Regions function, you can organize data (patterns) in a Conditional Area and you can add one or more fixed regions to the same Conditional Area. You can also set individual rearranges assigned to the header and the footer of a region like text labels, shapes and calculations.

On the illustration below, you can see several regions included in the Conditional Area. For each region, text labels as well as shapes in the header are added. Different patterns containing the item lines are assigned to each individual region and calculations, and shapes are added to the footer.

Names and the order of regions are maintained on the Output tab of the Conditional Area dialog which is accessed via the Sheet menu. Moving regions Up/Down can effect the order of printed regions in the form design.

Exercise

Download and import the attached configuration called 24. Regions in Lasernet Developer 9. Afterwards, go to the Forms section and open the Sample form.

1. Right-click in the output, and then click Conditional Area in the context menu to open the Conditional Area dialog.

2. To add a new region, click the Add button on the Regions tab.

3. Define Region name as No Discount.

4. Click Ok to confirm changes.

5. Add two more regions with the following names: Discount and Additional costs.

6. Click Ok to confirm changes.

7. On the Sheet menu, click Patterns and Rearranges to open the Patterns and Rearranges dialog.

8. Edit the No Discount pattern. To this end, double-click it. In the dialog displayed, switch to the Output tab and select No Discount from the Output Region drop-down box.

9. Click Ok to confirm changes.

10. Edit the Discount pattern the same way. For this pattern, select Discount from the Output Region drop-down box.

11. Edit the Info pattern. For this pattern, select Same As Previous Pattern from the Output Area drop-down box on the Output tab.

Note: When applying the Same As Previous Pattern option to a pattern, the pattern is added to the same region as the previous one while processing. This is convenient if a pattern has no special identifier and data included in the pattern belongs to the previous pattern.

12. Edit the Article pattern as well. For this pattern, select Additional costs from the Output Region drop-down box.

13. Click Ok on both dialogs to confirm changes.

You have splitted the item lines into three regions in the following order:

• the first region contains item lines without discount;
• the next region contains item lines with Discount;
• the last region contains item lines with additional costs.

14. Edit the No Discount region by setting Additional progress to 15 mm.

Set the same values for the Discount region.

An additional progress of 15 mm has been added to each region.

15. Use the Text tool to add the Article text at any position on the Middle Page of the output.

16. Edit properties for the fixed text by and setting Relative to to Top of region.

17. Set Region to Discount.

18. Select the All pages check box.

These settings allow adding the rearrange to the top of the region for each page where this region is inserted.

19. On the Property bar, set the X position to 15 mm and the Font style to Bold.

20. Use the Text tool to add five more additional rearranges containing the following text labels: Description, Quantity, Disc., Price and Amount. Follow the same steps as you did adding the Article text. These labels are names for the columns.

You can also copy the Article text, paste it in the output and edit every copied text labels by selecting each of it and pressing F2.

21. On the Developer toolbar, click Shape, then click Line and draw a line in the output.

22. Edit the the Line properties by setting Relative to to Bottom of region.

23. Set Region to No Discount.

24. Set the Y position to 4 mm.

Let's use a new and quick method to create a copy of the labels and assign them to the region of item lines with No Discount. To this end, follow the steps listed below.

25. In the output, switch to the Middle Page tab.

26. On the View menu, click Property Editor, and then select the Property Editor check box.

27. Use the Select tool to select all the labels assigned to the region called Discount. After selecting, copy and paste (Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V) items.

Important: Do not de-select any objects after they have been copied.

28. On the Property Editor panel, edit the Region property under the Relative subgroup of the Position group and set the No Discount value for the selected rearranges.

29. Finally, you can add the Additional costs fixed text as a header for the Additional costs region. And there is no help this time... because now you already know how to do it!