(The following material was submitted by David White, a Crystal Reports developer and instructor in the UK. )
The Quest for the Perfect Table
As someone who has been frustrated by this, and it seems to
be an issue which the software developers consider low priority,
because it doesn’t look like the drawing options have been changed
through a number of version upgrades, I have managed to work out
some ways in which I can arrive at a reasonable looking table
without pulling my hair out. I thought it might be of use to share a
few tips.
1. Change the default grid size and
make sure Snap To Grid is selected
For v2008, these properties are located on the Layout Tab in the
menu under "File => Options".
I usually work with 1/10th of a centimetre (0.1), but it appears
Crystal can’t handle this exactly, it changes it to 0.101. Near
enough! This makes the grid appear with a dot pattern which makes
your eyes go crossed, but it is much more manageable.
2. Go in the menu to "View
=> Guidelines => Design view". This helps you to see where your
Guides are set by placing horizontal and vertical dotted lines on
the page.
3. Now you are ready to draw the
outside borders of your table. You can either use the Draw Box tool,
or draw individual Top/Bottom/Left/Right lines. A box can ‘cross’
the section boundaries, as can vertical lines. So here we go
a. First, place four guides on the
rulers, one for each side of your table. The guides will ‘snap to’
the grid dividers, just as drawn objects will. That is to say, when
you drag to draw, you will ‘feel’ your drawing tool step through the
1/10th increments. I found something interesting here. When you use
the box tool, the vertical edges of the box are truly snapped to the
guides – when you drag a guide on the top ruler, it resizes the box.
I couldn’t get this to happen with the horizontal lines, or when I
used the line tool.
b. Create two measure line tools, one
horizontal and one vertical. These are just short lines which you
will use to ‘jump’ down or across the number of grid increments in
order to make your rows and columns equal width (if that’s what you
need). I colour mine red.
c. Let’s start with the rows. Drag or
use the keyboard arrow keys to position your horizontal measure on
the top row of your table, overlapping the vertical border
d. Now press the down arrow key on the
keyboard and count how many times, to position the measure tool
where you need the first row divider to be. (Here, it’s 7 jumps)
e. Grab the Line tool and starting at
the point where your measure tool hits the vertical border, drag to
draw your line across the table. You should find that the drawn line
snaps to the grid, so you get a perfect ‘joint’ at both ends.
If not, you can move the line left or right using the keyboard
right/left arrow keys and you will still be using the grid to align
correctly. If you drag manually, you may find you end up ‘in
between’ the gridlines. You can lengthen or shorten the line by
using Shift + right/left arrow key – again,
If you are
working with a table which was constructed before you reset the grid
measurement, you may well find that existing lines ‘fall between’
the new gridlines, and if you try to nudge the line using arrow
keys, it doesn’t solve the problem. What you need to do is to select
the line, cut it to the clipboard (Ctrl + X), then paste (Ctrl + V).
When you click to re-place the line, it will now be on the
gridlines.
f. Next, reselect your measure tool
line, and press the down keyboard arrow key the same number of times
you previously counted to get the position of the next row divider.
Draw this line in the same way you did the first one ... and keep on
going until you have the correct number of rows.
4. You can use the exact same method
for your vertical column dividers using your vertical measure tool.
When you have finished, you should have a perfectly regular
table, with evenly spaced rows and columns. All that is left to do
is to delete the measure tools. And populate the table, of course.