Free-form placement off

If a section has the Free-Form Placement option turned off, the program no longer references the object's absolute coordinates to determine where it prints, except under the following conditions.

• The absolute x coordinate is still referenced to determine where each object begins printing horizontally (left and right placement).
• The y coordinate is still referenced for vertical placement of the object, but the coordinates may be adjusted by the Crystal Reports Designer when the printer driver changes.

So, if the report is printed using a printer driver that measures inter-line spacing greater than the original printer driver, the y coordinate increases and the text-based object prints farther down the page. With the Free-Form Placement option turned off, the user no longer controls the vertical placement of text-based objects; the printer driver determines that instead.

However, the placement of OLE objects such as graphics, boxes, and lines is not controlled by the printer driver. Therefore, when placing and printing, the Crystal Reports Designer always references the absolute coordinates of these objects. Due to the various placement methods, problems can arise when both text-based objects and OLE objects are placed on a report.

For example, a box (OLE object) is placed around a database string field (text-based object). Everything looks great and everything is aligned as it should be. However, if the report is printed using a printer with an especially high measurement for inter-line spacing, then the following conditions occur.

• The placement of the box does not change relative to the section in which it is placed (the x and y coordinates do not change).
• The vertical placement of the text-based object changes because the y coordinate is adjusted upward.

Note:    The value is a measurement from the upper-left corner of the section; so, the greater the value, the farther down the page the object prints.

If you are distributing reports that have sections formatted with the Free-Form Placement option turned off, and you want the objects in those sections to be surrounded by a border or formatted with lines, it is better to modify the objects' border properties than to insert lines and boxes. This way, the borders always stay with the objects. Right-click the object, then select the Change Border option from the shortcut menu. See Adding borders, color, and shading to a field.

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