This dialog, which is accessed by clicking on the Report Settings dialog on the right-hand side of the main Reports dialog, provides global settings for the reports.

The settings at the top of the dialog allow you to direct report output to a text file, or a comma separated values (.csv) file, which can then be opened with Excel. Here you specify the type of export file and a name for the file, without the file extension. As well as sending output to the file, it is still also sent to the console.

The settings in the Trading Performance Report Settings dialog group, as the name suggests, only apply to the Trading Performance Reports, not the Account Transaction Reports. These settings are:

• Max columns per page: specifies the maximum number of table columns that are displayed in a report, before the report is paginated and the next series of columns are output on the next ‘page’ in the console, and so on.
• Max label width: governs the maximum number of characters that are allowed for the width of dimension labels in a report e.g. the text used to specify a report period in a Period report, or the share name in a Share report etc.
• Min column width: determines the minimum number of characters allowed for a column in a tabular report. The column may be wider than this if the column header requires it.
• Period reports have a __ month period: specifies the number of months in each period that the Period report is divided into
• Dividends are: use this to include or exclude dividends from reports and, if included, to specify whether they should be included in a period based on their ex-div date or pay date. Note that this only applies to reports on Test session data; reports on Live session data only includes dividends if they are paid, because of the way that ShareScope detects dividend payments.
• Benchmark index: choose the index used by some report parameters e.g. Excess Return vs benchmark; Sharpe Ratio (benchmark); Portfolio Beta; etc.
• ‘Risk-free’ rate: this is the nominal return you might expect to  get if you deposited your cash at a supposedly risk-free institution such as the Bank of England or the US Treasury. It is used in the calculation of Sharpe Ratio (risk-free); Treynor Performance Index; etc.