RDL Editor - Styling

Fonts

The Font section (textboxes and table cells) edits the TextRun level — where RDL actually keeps typography:

• Family (with suggestions) and size (8pt, 10pt, …)
• Labeled button rows: Style (B / I / U / S), Align (L / C / R / J), Vertical (Top / Mid / Bot — RDL keeps vertical alignment on the box-level style; the default is Top)
• Color picker with a clear button
• Format — the number/date format string (chapter 4)

Cloud note: a font that renders on your machine may not exist in BC online's PDF renderer. Stick to standard fonts for customer documents, and Test Print in the real environment.

Borders

The Borders editor (items and cells) mirrors RDL's model exactly:

1. Pick a side: All (the default <Border>) or Top / Bottom / Left / Right (per-side overrides). Sides that have a border carry an orange underline marker — so a cell with only a solid Top reads at a glance — and selecting an item opens the editor on the side that actually has one. The blue highlight is just which side you're currently editing.
2. Set Style (Solid, Dashed, Dotted, Double, None), Width (1pt), Color.
3. Remove all borders clears the default and every per-side border in one click.

Rules that match the print engine: a border whose style resolves to None draws nothing (a Border with only a color set prints nothing in SSRS either); a side set to (use All/default) inherits the All border. The light dotted grid on tables is the editor's editing aid for borderless cells — same convention as Report Builder — not a real border.

This is how BC layouts draw their separator lines: the rule under an invoice totals cell is All=None + Bottom=Solid — select the cell, pick Bottom, set Solid.

Lines use the same controls labelled Line Stroke (a line's stroke is its border). A line with style None prints invisibly; the editor shows it faint-dotted so it stays findable.

Padding

The Padding editor (L / R / T / B, values like 2pt) controls space inside a textbox or cell. Two field-guide tips baked into the design: a small right padding makes amount columns readable, and padding is the right tool where people are tempted to add spacer columns — blank columns still consume printable width.

Backgrounds

• Background color on items, table cells (the cell pane — accepts names, #hex, or expressions like the alternating-row snippet), and bands (Body/Header/Footer in the page properties). Expression-valued colors are shown as editable text — a color picker can't silently destroy them.
• Z-Index on every item controls stacking when items overlap (higher = on top), exactly as it prints.
• Background images render on the canvas: embedded images for real (the base64 is in the layout), reachable external URLs too. The letterhead pattern — a page-sized background image on the body — looks on canvas like it prints.
• Temporary background colors are a great blank-page diagnostic: tint suspect sections, Test Print, see which color owns the blank page. Undo when done.

Images

Image items show their actual content when the source is Embedded (logos!) or a reachable external URL; database-bound images show a labelled placeholder (their bytes only exist at runtime).

• Source: External / Embedded / Database
• Image (when Embedded): a dropdown of the report's embedded image names — no typing from memory
• Sizing: AutoSize, Fit (may distort), FitProportional (use this for logos), Clip

Visual truth

The canvas renders at RDL's real defaults — Arial 10pt, exact authored row heights, transparent table backgrounds, true Z-order, per-side borders, real stroke widths. If something looks different from Report Builder's design view, the editor is usually showing what prints, not what a designer idealizes. The remaining gap is always the dataset: Test Print is the final word.