Transaction Report Advanced Formatting

Question

I am in the process of transitioning internal reports to latex from manually created PDF files. And, for the most part I can get the information on the page, but formatting is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated. I've been able to get the basic set up using the longtable package, and striping with colortbl. But I haven't figured out how to put the stroke above and below the page header, or format the region at the top of the page.

I have included an example of the report I am currently working with. Any advice would be appreciated, especially for formatting the region including "Midwest" and above.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/299036/sample-report.pdf

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here's some possible code producing the required layout. The code contains some explanatory comments.

The titlesec package was used to design the header and the footer.

The tabularx, booktabs, colortbl, and multirow packages were used to generate the tables. Instead of using the tabularx package, you could use (if necessary) the ltablex package to allow page breaks inside the tables.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[landscape,margin=1.5cm,includehead,includefoot]{geometry}
\usepackage[pagestyles]{titlesec}
\usepackage[table]{xcolor}
\usepackage{tabularx,booktabs,colortbl,multirow}
\usepackage{lipsum} % just to generate some text

% some space
\newcommand\TSpace{\hspace*{\tabcolsep}}

\setlength\parindent{0pt}

% definition of the page style with required header and footer
\newpagestyle{repstyle}{%
   \renewcommand{\makefootrule}{%
    \color{gray!70}\makebox[0pt][l]{\rule[.9\baselineskip]{\linewidth}{2pt}}}
   \renewcommand{\makeheadrule}{%
    \color{gray!70}\makebox[0pt][l]{\rule[\baselineskip]{\linewidth}{2pt}}%
      \rule[-.5\baselineskip]{\linewidth}{2pt}}
  \sethead
    {\footnotesize\bfseries\TSpace Balance Payments Report -- National}
    {}
    {\footnotesize\bfseries Generated by UserName \today\hspace{2cm}\thepage\TSpace}
  \setfoot{\footnotesize\bfseries\TSpace Reference Code:  SH1SP1SD1DS20110426DE20110426GB3OB1DN1234}{}{}
}

\pagestyle{repstyle}

\newcolumntype{A}{>{\footnotesize}X}
\newcolumntype{B}[1]{>{\footnotesize}p{#1}}
\newcolumntype{C}{>{\footnotesize}c}

% using sans serif font in the document
\renewcommand{\familydefault}{\sfdefault}

\newcommand\Heading[2]{%
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{Xl@{}X}
  \multirow{2}{*}{\huge\bfseries Balance Payments} & #1--#2 
    & Grouped by Region, and ordered by Date / Time \\
  & Restricted to Historical, Pending &
\end{tabularx}\vspace{1ex}
}

% command for writting the first two lines of the payments (Midwest, and Date, Customer Name, etc.). The mandatory argument declares the region: "Midwest", or "East"
\newcommand\RegHeading[1]{%
  \hiderowcolors
  \toprule[1.5pt]\addlinespace[1.5ex]
  \large\bfseries #1 \\ \arrayrulecolor{gray!70}
  \midrule[0.8pt]
  \small\bfseries Date & \small\bfseries Customer Name 
    & \small\bfseries Number &   \small\bfseries Sales Rep Name 
    & \small\bfseries Balance & \small\bfseries Payment Method 
    & \small\bfseries Total \\
  \showrowcolors
}

% command for writting the four last rows (Totals for Midwest, Checking Account, Credit Card and Net Total). Arguments: region, check. acc. total, credit card total, net total.
\newcommand\RegTotal[4]{%
  \hiderowcolors
  \bottomrule[1.5pt]\addlinespace[.3ex]
  Totals for #1 \\
  \midrule
  \multicolumn{2}{l}{\hspace{10pt}\footnotesize Checking Account} &&&&& #2 \\
  \midrule
  \multicolumn{2}{l}{\hspace{10pt}\footnotesize Credit Card} &&&&& #3 \\
  \midrule
  Net Total &&&&&& #4 \\
}


\begin{document}

\Heading{04/26/2011}{04/26/2011}

\rowcolors{1}{blue!10}{}
\arrayrulecolor{black!70}

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{AB{4cm}AB{7cm}AB{3cm}C}
\RegHeading{Midwest}
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Credit Card & 0.50\\
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Checking Account & 0.50\\
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Credit Card & 0.50\\
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Checking Account & 0.50\\
\RegTotal{Midwest}{1.00}{1.00}{2.00}
\end{tabularx}

\rowcolors{1}{blue!10}{}
\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{AB{4cm}AB{7cm}AB{3cm}C}
\RegHeading{East}
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Credit Card & 0.50\\
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Checking Account & 0.50\\
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Credit Card & 0.50\\
04/26/2011 & Jones, Mark & 100 & Smith, John & 48.50 & Checking Account & 0.50\\
\RegTotal{East}{1.00}{1.00}{2.00}
\end{tabularx}

\begin{tabularx}{\textwidth}{AB{4cm}AB{7cm}AB{3cm}C}
\toprule[1.5pt]\addlinespace[1.5ex]
\large\bfseries Grand Totals \\\arrayrulecolor{gray!70}
\midrule[0.8pt]
\multicolumn{2}{l}{\hspace{10pt}\footnotesize Checking Account} &&&&& 1.00 \\
\midrule
\multicolumn{2}{l}{\hspace{10pt}\footnotesize Credit Card} &&&&& 1.00 \\
\midrule
Net Total &&&&&& 2.00 \\
\bottomrule
\multicolumn{2}{l}{\scriptsize 8 transactions accounted for.}
\end{tabularx}

\end{document}

Of course, the code can be improved and simplified, but it will give you a good starting point.