Index
Preliminary information
First of all, I think it is good to explain what is a relationship. You have surely heard about it during your school or work activities, or even simply on the Internet or on TV.
A report is a written document - to be distributed in digital or paper format - which can be completely textual, that is, include only typed characters, or enriched with graphic elements such as diagrams, tables, images and more.
A report can have several uses: summarize a text at school, propose a report of an activity at work or illustrate the results of a statistical research. There lunghezza of a relationship is variable according to the needs of the writer. Usually, it is produced through a specific program for writing: think of the most classic example, Microsoft Word, which I will also use below as a reference point.
I remind you that Word is available for both Windows and macOS and is paid: it is distributed both as part of a monthly subscription (the one to Microsoft 365, starting from 7 euros / month) and together with the classic Office package with a one-time purchase. The subscription version includes one free trial lasting 30 days without renewal obligation: more info here.
If I had a tablet, perhaps one with a keyboard, you can also use Word on the go, through the application available for both Android and iOS / iPadOS. This is free for all devices with dimensions equal to or smaller than 10.1 ", otherwise it requires the subscription of a Microsoft 365 subscription.
That said, the directions I'll give you for Word are actually applicable to most alternative word processing software as well, including some great ones available for free. An example above all? LibreOffice Writer, which I will also talk about later and which I have covered in great detail in a dedicated tutorial. On the Mac, it is also possible to do excellent things with Pages.
Regardless of the word processing software used, to make a relationship compatible with the largest number of media and devices, it is good practice convert it to PDF, a standard now supported by the vast majority of devices and operating systems that allows you to read a document while always maintaining the correct formatting (which in some cases does not happen with Word files if, for example, you open the document with a software version different from the one that generated the file or directly with a different program).
Also in this case, the solutions available are simple, numerous and often also included in word processing software (or operating systems). You will find more details on the whole procedure later in this tutorial.
How to write a report
Well now that you've set the theoretical foundation on how to write a PDF report, let's move on to the practical side. In this chapter of my tutorial I want to show you some of the aspects that you cannot overlook in writing a report: only by taking into account each of them will you be able to arrive at a clean, effective and complete drafting.
Destination
Before you start writing your report, you need to precisely outline what it is destinazione of your paper, that is in essence who will read the document you produced and what it is purpose of the document itself. Fixing this detail will help you throughout the rest of the procedure: not surprisingly, you will have to modulate the language and tone suitable for your target, propose certain types of information more or less complex and so on.
I would like to specifically suggest some details that you may consider. To create a relationship that is as formal as possible, prefer the use of the font Times New Roman, that is perhaps the character "par excellence" when it comes to formality. To be able to select it, go with the cursor at the top left of the document editing screen: just below the item Planning, you will see a text box with the name of the character style, which is usually set by default to Calipers (Body). Click on this and the drop-down menu will open where you can select "Times New Roman" as the font.
As for the use of a formal or informal style, in case you need some advice in this regard, I invite you to consult my tutorials on how to write a letter to the computer, how to write a formal email and how to write an email to a professor. Clearly, there are differences between email and relationship, but some "rules" to follow apply to both one thing and another.
Language
As just mentioned, the language used is a fundamental detail to be taken into account in writing your report and unfolds under many aspects. In addition to the aforementioned tones - more or less formal - much attention must be paid to correctness in writing, both grammatical and syntactic.
It is very important re-read several times the report and eliminate any typos, or fix any phrases that sound bad. A little example tip: pay attention to E accented capital letters (you have to use the character È and not the "E" without accent followed by an apostrophe). More info here.
In Microsoft Wordhowever, there is a tool that can automatically detect grammatical errors. When opening a document, look at the small button in the shape of a lower left book and with a cross above: clicking on it opens theeditor lateral to the right, with a section that has the errors underlined and, plus a bass, a section Suggestions where you will find the proposals for correcting the program.
Also beware of any foreign or slang terms that Word might mark as errors or distort, but that you actually spelled correctly.
Furthermore, the report being a document that contains Facts and not opinions, it is good to always be precise and illustrate in detail any information included in your work. This, however, does not have to mean becoming verbose: being precise but concise, without boring the reader.
Information gathering
In order to write your report, you definitely have to gather information about the topic you are dealing with. This information can come from different sources: first of all - maybe I will surprise you - but I advise you not to rely on the Web, or rather, safely rely on the Internet, but to access books, writings published by certified bodies and authorities and so on, because sadly the internet is full of pitfalls when it comes to bogus (or just plain inaccurate) information.
One of the most classic sources used on the Net, and which I also advise you to take into consideration, is Wikipedia ; however, do it with a grain of salt, knowing that even in the famous online encyclopedia you can find information that is not completely reliable.
It was used Word su PC, within the program there is also a plugin that allows you to consult the items of your interest on Wikipedia. To access it, go to the top with the mouse pointer and click on the option Inserisci, then tap on the item Wikipedia in the center of the toolbar just below. This will open the side menu on the right, allowing you to search for any item via the search bar above and explore the relevant sections.
Writing a draft and reviewing
After outlining the target, the language and the information to be entered, it's time to move on to writing real. The first step obviously consists in the drafting of one draft, that is, a non-definitive version, which you will have to add one to review in order to identify any necessary adjustments: errors, contents to be replaced, spacing and more.
To set up your draft, I recommend starting with an outline consisting of title of the relationship, introduction (to illustrate what will then be dealt with in detail within the document), the content actual relationship (with results, data, etc.) and the conclusions.
After you have written, checked and corrected the draft, you obviously have to save her (but in reality you have to do it even before, in order to avoid that some unforeseen event can make you lose your work): to proceed in this direction, click on the button in the shape of a floppy disk, and choose the file name and destination folder.
Insert list of sources
The writing of the "body" of your relationship cannot lack theinsertion of the list of sources from which you took inspiration. You can insert this list at the end of the document, with a dedicated title and listing the sources through a bulleted list.
To indicate each source, you can choose the style you prefer: in any case they must not be missing author, title of the document / website / publication e publication date. You can also consider inserting external links to the sources: to do this, it is enough to do copy and incolla of the link within the document and Word will immediately recognize it as an external link (I do not recommend putting a hyperlink on a text, otherwise the link will be illegible on the printed version of the report).
Write the summary
Another element that cannot be missing in any self-respecting relationship is the summary. It consists of a list of all chapters e paragraphs of the report, flanked by page number where they are located. The summary is usually inserted at the beginning of the report, even before chapter 1.
Writing the summary, as you can see in the image above, can be done simply using the tools already made available by Microsoft Word, as well as manually. In this regard, I leave you to my tutorial dedicated to creating a table of contents in Word, if you want to better understand how to do it.
How to export the report to PDF
At this point in the tutorial, you have learned all the main aspects to consider when writing your report! Now, however, comes the crux of it all: export to PDF your report, in order to make it compatible with almost all the devices on which it will be read.
In case you don't know, PDF stands for Portable Document Format and represents a standard for reading documents regardless of the medium in which it is opened. Converting a text file to PDF is very simple, but below I will show you the procedure in the specific case of this guide.
If you have used Microsoft Word, follow the steps I am going to show you in order to export the report to PDF. First of all, open your report in Word, go to the menu Fillet (top left) and choose the option Save with name. At this point, you can find the testo field to be completed with title you want to give to the relationship.
Just below it, there is a bar which you can click to open the different format options where you want to save the document. It is usually preset to “Word Document”: click on this bar and choose the item PDF from the list that will appear.
Now, choose the folder where you want to save the relationship. Back then, with the cursor on the PDF format selection bar, click on the button Save And that's it.
As also mentioned in the opening bars of the guide, Word is not the only solution to draft and then export a report in PDF. The best alternative that I suggest you to consider is LibreOffice, a completely free, multi-platform and cittàn open source suite compatible with all major operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux and even Android, with a rather successful port) and with all Microsoft Office files.
If you don't know how to install the program, I refer you to my tutorial on the subject. For export to PDF from LibreOffice, the procedure to follow is very similar to the one seen just now for Word: open the report in Writer (the word processor software included in the suite), go to the menu File> Export As> Export to PDF format (top left), configure, if desired, the parameters of the file to be obtained, and press the buttons Export e Save but I will complete the operation.
Well, now you have also discovered the best alternative to Word: through LibreOffice, from your PC, you can export a report in PDF with the same effectiveness! However, there are many other solutions for writing PDF reports. One of them is to save the document in .docx format, so without converting it to PDF and take advantage of external solutions, such as the ones I told you about in my tutorial on how to convert Word documents to PDF.
How to write a PDF report
