eud-eud-for-devexpress-reports-reporting-for-web-report-designer-create-reports-multi-column-reports.md
This document describes how to arrange report data in multiple columns, which can be used to create mailing labels, business cards or multi-column directories.
To access the multi-column settings of a report’s Detail band, switch to the Properties panel and expand the Detail Tasks or the Behavior category.
Mode
Enables you to select one of the following modes:
None
Use Column Count
Use Column Width
Column Spacing
Specifies the distance between adjacent columns. This value is measured in report units.
Layout
Specifies the preferred direction for arranging report data within columns.
First Across, then Down
First Down, then Across
The following image illustrates a report designer with a multi-column layout applied to the report:
In multi-column mode, the report’s design surface is limited to the area defined by the column width. This is the only area intended to contain report controls.
The rest of this surface defines the space on a page remaining for printing columns and column spacing area.
In the above image, the report data in the Detail band is contained within a Panel that provides borders around the enclosed content.
You can also specify a custom background color for the Panel. To learn how to change this color dynamically (based on the report’s underlying data), see Conditionally Change a Control’s Appearance.
When the report data is grouped (as in the above image), and the First Down, then Across multi-column layout is used, you can make each group start on a new column. To do this, set the Page Break property of the Group Footer to After the Band or After the Band, Except for the Last Entry. When there is no data to display in the Group Footer, set the band height to zero.