If you view the properties for a text component, you will see that you can specify a rotation value in degrees for display of the text in the report. You will also see a ‘Use word wrap?’ checkbox and ‘Word wrap at’ box. If you select the ‘Use word wrap?’ checkbox you will then be able to enter a value into the ‘Word wrap at’ box. This determines how far to the right text will run before wrapping onto a new line.

Text components can contain dynamic variables which are enclosed with ${…}. Any text that is not enclosed in ${…} is static. Dynamic variables (along with the logic tests discussed below) do bring a lot of flexibility to the look and feel of reports. Dynamic text can also be placed in the title bars of the components or in the table column headers.

The image above shows the properties for a text component with dynamic text variables. You can edit the static text and can also add and delete dynamic variables. Right click in the ‘Text’ box of the dialog to view the list of dynamic variables available. Hold your mouse pointer over each of the variable names to view a description. Click on a variable to insert it into the ‘Text’ box. Clearly, the text will not be displayed in the report as ${themeName} >> ${indicatorName} ${notEmpty(date, ‘>> ‘)} ${date} ${notEmpty(filterName, ‘>> Filter: ‘)} ${filterName} ${notEmpty(filterValue, ‘>> ‘)} ${filterValue}. Rather, it might be displayed as shown in the image below.

You can see that in this case, themeName resolves as ‘Social deprivation’, indicatorName as ‘% of population unemployed’, date as ‘2005’, filterName as ‘Zones’ and filterValue as ‘Edinburgh South’.

For the text found in the title of the Map component there are also some logic tests involved. These can be applied to any text strings to prevent errors where no data is associated with the text variable. The first logic test is:

${notEmpty(date, ‘>> ‘)}

In plain English this translates as the following:

“If, and only if, the value for date is not null and is not an empty bit of text, then write out the following text…”

So, the rule for this type of dynamic text entry is:

${test(condition, textIfConditionIsTrue)}

Another example involving the same logic test is the Scatter Plot component title text:

“${notEmpty(scatterplotCorrelation, ‘Correlation coefficient (r) = ‘ + scatterplotCorrelation + ‘ >> r-squared = ‘ + scatterplotRSquare + ‘, Regression Equation: y = ‘ + scatterplotGradient + ‘x + ‘ + scatterplotIntercept)}”

Note that the textIfConditionIsTrue part is “raw” (i.e. it’s the JavaScript code that will be evaluated if the condition is true). So, in this case, you need to parcel up the dynamic variables scatterplotCorrelation, scatterplotRSquare, scatterplotGradient and scatterplotIntercept using the + operator and put static text in quotes.

The available logic tests are:

• empty – ${empty(variable, textIfEmpty)}
• notEmpty – ${notEmpty(variable, textIfNotEmpty)}
• equals – ${equals(variable, ‘test text’, textIfEqual)}
• notEquals – ${notEquals(variable, ‘test text’, textIfNotEqual)}

If you click the ‘Styles’ tab for a text component you can customise your text using ‘Custom Style’ or set to a pre-existing style class by deselecting check box ‘Use custom style setting’ and choosing from the ‘Style Class’ drop down.