Apply Template to Existing Report ?

[lambsoft]

Hello All

New to Cognos 8 and have been through the official 5 days Report Authoring Training a few months back, now I am actually starting to work with the product ( Report Studio 8 ) and was trying to remember and find my way through the application.

We bundle Cognos with our product and ship a set of standard reports. They are not very pretty and I am wondering if I create a more professional template with a cover page and style can I then apply that to an existing report.

From what I have read and seen in my brief search it seems you can only start with a template...

Any help is greatly appreciated.

UPDATE : Solution Provided by Cognos Support

Here are the steps I was provided by Cognos Support from their KB :

Description:

How do you apply a new template to an existing report in Report Studio?

Solution:

Use the <pageheader>...</pageheader> and <pagefooter>..</pagefooter> tags in the template xml file to replace these two parts in the Report xml file.

Steps:

1.) Open the template in the Studio and click Tools, Copy Report to Clipboard
2.) Open Notepad (or similar text editor) and paste the template xml copied in step #1
3.) Open the existing report in Report Studio and click Tools, Copy Report to Clipboard.
4.) Open another instance of Notepad (etc), and paste the report xml copied in step #3
5.) Click on the notepad instance with the template xml contents (to give it focus).  Find and highlight the section from <pageHeader> to </pageHeader>, and copy it.
6.) Return to the instance of Notepad with the report xml (from step #4).  Find and highlight the section from <pageHeader> to </pageHeader>, and paste in the copied XML from the template XML file.
7.) Repeat steps 5 and 6 for <pageFooter> to </pageFooter>.
8.) Within the modified report XML instance of Notepad, do a "Select all" (Ctrl-A, right-click menu, or from the toolbar menu) and copy the entire contents.
9.) Within Report Studio, click Tools, then Copy Report from Clipboard.

[EnG__EsLaM]

yes u are Right

simply build your Template in report studio and copy the genearte XML of the template and add this code in Template.xml

call me if any u face any Problems


EnG : Eslam Mokhtar

BI Develper , Egypt