●the placement of the box will not change relative to the section it is in (the x and y coordinates will not change), but

●the vertical placement of the text-based object will change because the y coordinate will be adjusted upward based on the printer driver being used.

NOTE: The value is a measurement from the section’s upper left corner; so, the greater the value, the farther down the page the object will print.

If you are distributing reports with sections formatted with Free Form Placement toggled off, and you want the objects to be surrounded by a border or formatted with lines, it is better to modify the objects’ border properties rather than inserting lines and boxes. This way, the borders will always stay with the objects. Simply right-click the object and then select the CHANGE BORDER command from the shortcut menu that appears (see How to add color, shading, and borders, Page 238).

Remember, every section can be formatted with Free Form Placement toggled on or off. While it is better to toggle the option on in some cases and not in others, it is highly recommended that every section in your report be formatted the same.

Report creation checklist for distributed reports

1.To accommodate possible growth caused by a varying font measurements of different printer drivers:

●do not place objects extremely close to each other, and

●either increase the width of text-based objects by approximately 5% or reduce the size of the fonts.

2.Consider where and how you place multi-lined text-based objects. The number of lines necessary to print a text-based object may vary when printed using different printer drivers.

3.Use Windows TrueType fonts where possible because being the most common fonts they are readily available on all versions of Microsoft Windows and can realized on all printers.

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4.Use the most common and coarsest video driver settings. It is recommended that you set your video driver resolution to 640 x 480 pixels.

5.Set specific page margins.

6.Do not choose a specific printer. Choose the default printer unless your application or compiled report requires a specific printer.

7.After the report is completed and you are happy with the results, format every section to have Free Form Placement toggled on.

8.Remove all guidelines from the reports.

By adhering to this checklist your report will be the least sensitive to changing printer drivers and ready for distribution.

Updating printer drivers

In order to maintain performance, Seagate Crystal Reports queries the printer driver for each of the font elements (font metrics), such as average character height, character width, height of the ascenders and descenders, internal leading, etc. Sometimes a problem arises when using an older printer driver that does not return the font metrics accurately. If you are experiencing problems when printing (missing fields, incorrect formatting, etc.), it is recommended that you obtain and install the latest updated drivers for your printer. In many cases, these newer printer drivers will provide the accurate font metrics and printing issues will be remedied.

Report distribution

There are many ways to distribute reports.

●You can print the report and send it out by hand.

●You can choose to export your reports in Seagate Crystal Reports format (.RPT).

Printing, Viewing, and Exporting

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