Software Vault: The Gold Collection

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Text File | 1993-02-23 | 17KB | 529 lines

PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 1/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels The styling of printed text is usually controlled through the use of setup strings. In many software programs this styling is handled by a printer driver which translates your software requests for bolding, underlining or a special font, into setup strings that the selected printer can understand. For instance, your word processor may allow you to highlight a region of text and assign a styling attribute to that region through a menu command. This menu command then places special hidden characters (referred to as control characters) around the text. These special characters are then translated into setup strings by the printer driver at the time of printing. Paradox is different from these types of programs. Rather than using menu-driven styling commands and hidden control characters Paradox allows you to enter the setup string directly into a report specification. There are no printer drivers and therefore no translation is performed at the time of printing. This approach may seem intimidating at first, because you must obtain the necessary setup strings from the printer documentation and know how to enter these strings correctly. Once the process is mastered, however, you will gain access to most of the styling capabilities that your printer has to offer. Describing this process, is the purpose of this Technical Information Sheet. The following section is a step-by-step explanation of the process of placing setup strings into calculated fields in order to style reports. 1. You may initially choose a global setup string for the report through the report menu choices Settings | Setups. At this time you may choose Custom and enter your own custom string or choose Predefined and choose from a list of predefined setup strings. If you wish to view the current global setup string, choose Custom at this juncture. Press <Enter> to accept the current printer port, and you will see the current global setup string. You may modify the setup string at this time. 2. Prior to performing any styling it is preferable to do all other regular report customization. It is far easier to place the styling setup strings last than to adjust them as you design the report specification. PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 2/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels 3. Determine the appropriate setup string to perform the formatting task and count the number of characters contained in the string. All ASCII characters with decimal value of 31 or lower must be represented in three digit decimal number preceded with a backslash (see Appendix C of the PAL User's Guide for a complete list of the ASCII Character Set and their corresponding decimal codes). For instance, the Escape character which has ASCII decimal value of 27 would be represented as: \027. This set of four characters counts as a single character because Paradox will convert it into its single character form when sending it to the printer. A typical setup string which bolds text on an HP Laserjet II is represented as: \027(s3B. This string has a character count of 5. 4. Calculate the total number of setup string characters that will be placed on each line of the Report Specification. Make note of the highest number of setup string characters on any one line. We will refer to this number as the Margin Offset. Make sure you take into account all setup strings on the line. If you turn bolding on and off on the same line using the string noted above (and its complement which reverses the attribute), the Margin offset would be 10. 5. Increase the Page Width of the report specification to accommodate the space required for the Margin Offset. For instance, turning bolding on and off on the same line on a Laserjet requires that the standard 80 character portrait-mode Page Width be increased to 90. You can change the Page Width from the menu with the commands: Setting | Pagelayout | Width. This is a safety precaution to keep the text of the report from being pushed into the next page width. If your report is less than 80 characters wide, it is not necessary to perform this step. 6. Reports that have multiple page widths must be handled very carefully. When you increase the Page Width from 80 to 90 in order to accommodate 10 characters of setup string you may also be enveloping fields and text in the first page width that actually belong to the next page width. Since the printer can only print 80 characters on PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 3/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels a page, some text may "fall between the cracks" between the first and second page widths. To prevent this, you must move the text that was originally included in the second page width over to the right so that it once again begins just to the right of the vertical bar that defines the right margin. If there are more than two page widths in the report it may be necessary to adjust each and every page width appropriately. The concept here is that if the original right margin was 80 then each page width as defined by the new margin setting can still only print the first 80 characters of each page width. See Example 2 below for more details. 7. Be sure that you are currently running in Insert mode by checking for the letters "ins" in the upper right corner of the Report Design screen. If it is not on, turn it on by pressing the Insert key. 8. Move the cursor to the position on the Report Specification where you want to begin a styling attribute. 9. From the Report menu select Field | Place | Calculated. You will be prompted for an expression. Type in the setup string enclosed in double quotes. For instance: "\027(s3B". Press <Enter> twice to accept the string and place the field at the cursor location. You will be prompted to format the display width of the calculated field. Adjust the width to match the exact number of characters in the setup string. Bolding would look like this: AAAAAA. General Notes: The setup strings will take up space in the Report Specification and displace text or fields on the lines which they are placed. This displacement will not actually occur when the report is printed. The spaces occupied by the setup strings will be "eaten up" by the printer which interprets them as printing commands, not literal characters to be printed. If all the above instructions are followed, all text and fields in the report specification should print in the same location as they appeared before styling was added. PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 4/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels Paradox has no support for proportionally spaced fonts. Activating these fonts may cause alignment problems, especially if used in the table band in tabular reports. Use these fonts only in areas where strict columner alignment is not required (as in a title in the report or page header). Notes on Mailing Labels: Mailing labels are different from the typical report in that data in the first page width is used as a template for all other page widths in the report spec. Because the first page width can effect the alignment of the subsequent page widths the Margin Offset must be precise and the number of setup string characters must be exactly the same on every line in the form band. This insures that a fixed number of spaces will be "eaten up" on every line and thus the page widths beyond the first will not have a staggered left margin. If you wish to style some lines of the label but not others, you must place dummy setup strings on the lines that are not styled. You can create a dummy setup string by turning off an attribute immediately after turning it on. Examples: Example 1: The following example is based on a mailing label report. It will cover styling issues relevant to both normal reports and reports in labels mode. The setup strings in this example are appropriate for an HP Laserjet II. For the purpose of clarity, we will use a letter key to identify each field in the report specification. Your report specification would not actually appear this way. This is the key: A's = First Name B's = Last Name C's = Street Address D's = City E's = State F's = Zip Code PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 5/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels X's = a calculated field for bold type: "\027(s3B" Y's = a calculated field for normal type: "\027(s0B" Example 1a: This is the mailing label report before styling: ....+...10....+...20....+...3*....+...10....+...20....+...3*.... page─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── form─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── AAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBB │ │ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC │ │ DDDDDDDDDD, EE FFFFF │ │ form─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── page─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── ═════════════════════════════╧═════════════════════════════╧═════ Example 1b: This is the report after styling only the first line (note that the right margin has been increased to 40 in order to accommodate the Margin Offset.) ....+...10....+...20....+...30....+...4*....+...10....+...20... page───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── form───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── XXXXXAAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBBYYYYY │ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC │ DDDDDDDDDD, EE FFFFF │ form───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── page───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── ═══════════════════════════════════════╧═══════════════════════ PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 6/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels Note that the first line has 12 characters that will be absorbed by the printer as print commands. This will cause the right margin to return to 30 so that the next page width will print in the correct location. The subsequent lines will have 12 extra trailing spaces and will leave the margin at 40. This would be fine if this were a standard report, but in labels mode it will cause alignment problems. The labels would look like this on the printed page: John Jones Ed Smith 10 Jones Street 10 Smith St. Jonestown, NJ 06060 Smithtown,.. Example 1c: The example below displays a method which corrects this effect. Each line beyond the first is padded with a set of dummy setup strings. These strings will have no styling effect and will be "eaten up" by the printer. This will pull the right margin back to its correct position. Keep in mind that labels reports are special in that they must contain exactly the same number of setup string characters on every line of the report. This padding technique is only necessary for mailing labels. ....+...10....+...20....+...30....+...4*....+...10....+...20... page───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── form───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── XXXXXAAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBBYYYYY │ XXXXXYYYYYCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC │ XXXXXYYYYYDDDDDDDDDD, EE FFFFF │ form───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── page───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────── ═══════════════════════════════════════╧═══════════════════════ Example 2: This example demonstrates proper text and field adjustment when using setup strings for styling in a multiple page width report. Different letters are once again used to differentiate between different fields. PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 7/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels Example 2a: This is a simple multiple page free form report before modification. ....+...10....+...20....+...3*....+...10....+...20....+...3*.... Report Header Info │ Report Header Info page─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── form─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── AAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBB │CCCCCCCC DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD │ EEEEEEEEEEE FFFFFFFFFFFFF │GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG │ form─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── page─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┼───── ═════════════════════════════╧═════════════════════════════╧═════ Example 2b: This is the same report after the Page Width has been increased to accommodate a five character margin offset. As you can see fields C, D, and G now belong (partially) to the wrong page width. ....+...10....+...20....+...30....*....+...10....+...20....+...30 Report Header Info Report Header Info page──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── form──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── AAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBB CCCCCCCC DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD EEEEEEEEEEE FFFFFFFFFFFFF GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG form──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── page──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── ══════════════════════════════════╧══════════════════════════════ PRODUCT : Paradox NUMBER : 852 VERSION : All OS : DOS DATE : February 23, 1993 PAGE : 8/8 TITLE : Styling Paradox Reports and Mailing Labels Example 2c: This is the same report after the fields and text have been moved to accommodate the margin offset. No actual styling setup strings have been placed yet. ....+...10....+...20....+...30....*....+...10....+...20....+...30 Report Header Info │ Report Header Info page──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── form──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── AAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBB │CCCCCCCC DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD EEEEEEEEEEE FFFFFFFFFFFFF │GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG form──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── page──────────────────────────────┼────────────────────────────── ═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════ Once in this state it is important to maintain the field positions as they appear. Inputting setup strings in one page width will move the fields in the subsequent page widths to the right. Restore them to their proper positions when this occurs. DISCLAIMER: You have the right to use this technical information subject to the terms of the No-Nonsense License Statement that you received with the Borland product to which this information pertains.