Thanks Bob. That would work with a fixed pitch font, as the number of characters would absolutely determine the line length. But with a proportional font, you'd need to know the width of each character that was used in the line. I've tried counting characters in proportional fonts in the past, and while it works more or less, the results weren't quite good enough for production work.
The details are beyond my expertise, but I understand it's possible in a Windows environment to determine programatically whether or not the contents of a defined area overflow its boundaries. Now if R:Base were to expose a new Property IS_OVERFLOW (Yes / No) then that could be used to test the line, and when the value was YES the font size could be decreased in say 1 point increments until the property returned NO. You'd want to include a limit on how small the font size could go (as Avery DesignPro does) and generate a hard Overflow error once that limit was reached. I've looked, and I don't see such a property in 7.6 . . . (Razzak?) Tom Hawley On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Bob Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > A very quick over view... > > Set a variable that contains the entire line. Such as > vCSZ = (ShipCity + ',' & ShipState & ShipZip) > > If the Before Generate EEP... > Set var vCSZLength = (SLEN(.vCSZ)) > If vCSZLength > 50 then Property CSZ Font_Size 10 > else > Property CSZ Font_Size 12 > Endif > > You would need to do the above for each line on your label. > The above simple sample assumes the line for City, State and Zip > has a component ID named CSZ. The 50 is just a number I used > for example. You would need to determine the maximum character > count your label line will hold with the default font and font size. > > As the data is ran, the font size can be adjusted on the fly. > You can even change font type, under line, italics etc. on the fly. > > You might want to consider using REPORTS instead of LABELS > to create the labels. You have more control and features. > > Hope this helps. It is one way of achieving your goal. > > -Bob > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas J Hawley" <[email protected]> > To: "RBASE-L Mailing List" <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, May 17, 2010 7:48 PM > Subject: [RBASE-L] - Label Design Issues (Shrink to Fit) > > > Razzak, I'm aware of the new "suppress blank lines" property and that > works fine; it's much easier to implement than the old solution which > required a lot of code. > > But I don't understand how the FONT_SIZE property could be used to > implement a "shrink to fit" capability. If the line's too long you > can of course use FONT_SIZE to make it shorter by reducing the font > size. But how do you determine that the line is too long and needs to > have its font size reduced? In other words, how do you check for and > determine the existence of an overflow condition? > > Any guidance would be much appreciated. It would be great to have our > entire workflow within R:Base so we wouldn't have to deal with Avery > DesignPro. > > Tom Hawley > > > On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 5:48 PM, A. Razzak Memon <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> At 12:50 PM 5/16/2010, Thomas J Hawley wrote: >> >>> So far as I am aware, R:Base cannot do both blank line suppression >>> and shrink to fit at the same time, and Autosize is not the same >>> thing as shrink to fit in any case. (I make these statements with >>> the usual expectation on this list that I might be about to learn >>> something.) >> >> >> Tom, >> >> Get ready to learn something ... >> >> Did you know that the "Suppress Empty Lines" property was added on >> November 2, 2009 with the release of R:BASE 7.6 (Build:7.6.8.31102), >> and R:BASE Turbo V-8 (Build:8.0.22.31102)? >> >> FYI, an additional "Suppress Empty Lines" property was added for the >> Variable Memo control. This allows for an easy solution to display >> address labels and eliminate blank lines by containing the address >> in one long text string, combined with carriage returns. >> >> Label Designer |Variable Memo Control| Right-Click|Properties ... >> >> Report Designer |Variable Memo Control| Right-Click|Properties ... >> >> In reference to "Shrink to Fit", you can take advantage of >> dynamically controlling the "Font Size" based on printable space >> using the PROPERTY <CompID> FONT_SIZE nn command. >> >> Remember, we are only limited by our in-depth knowledge and the >> currently used version of R:BASE! >> >> Nothing is impossible! >> >> Very Best R:egards, >> >> Razzak. >> >> P.S. >> If you need a sample to demonstrate the use of such features in >> the latest updates of R:BASE 7.6, Turbo V-8, and R:BASE eXtreme >> 9.0, please let me know. I can prepare a sample, contingent to >> my time availability. >> >> >> > > >
