Hanging indent

[whanigsberg]

Does anyone know of a way to produce a hanging indent in the report generator?

To jog your memory, a hanging indent produces a paragraph with the first line flush left and subsequent lines indented. It is used in bibliographic entries among other places.

My current workaround is to merge my list to a word processor all of which provide the hanging indent as an option for paragraph formatting.

Thanks,
Bill

[Stan Mathews]

RE: Hanging indent

Bill,

What are you trying to indent? Are you trying to format a detail section, rich text object, what?

I was able to "hanging indent" a detail section by using a conditional object with mrecno()=1 and mrecno()>1 conditions, placing the selected fields for the detail section in different positions within the object.

Pfobably not what you wanted.

Stan

[whanigsberg]

RE: Hanging indent

Hi Stan,

This is a bit of a stumper.

I am using a rich text object for various gritty issues relating to formatting. I want the text to wrap to a second and third line as necessary. Lines after the first are supposed to be indented.

What I am working on is the MLA bibliographic format for a list of references. It really requires a bit of string manipulation. I am printing out of an intermediate table to simplify them and speed up printing.

The APA format indents the first line.

Any bright ideas gratefully accepted.

Bill

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Hanging indent

Bill, would a brute force approach help? I'm wondering if it would be possible to cut your memo field into discrete sequential chunks, storing the resulting pieces in a series of child records. Include a field to record the position of each child record in the sequence. In your report if the sequential number is 1, use a conditional object positioning the text to the left margin, otherwise use a conditional object to position the text indented from the LM. If it would work it would be incredibly messy... but...

-- tom

[Stan Mathews]

RE: Hanging indent

Tom.

My thought as well. Use string functions to collect the first, say 10 words or seventy characters, then the rest. Justify with conditional objects. Print the pieces.

I think we're talking a very esoteric printing formulation here. Not something that should occur often.


Stan

[whanigsberg]

RE: Hanging indent

Hi Tom,

>>If it would work it would be incredibly messy... but...

Perhaps it's one of those cures which generates nostalgia for the disease.

Actually, I am not using a memo field execept for free text notes on a reference (a book review, perhaps) and in any case I am not printing the memo field.

The temp table from which the report prints has a grand total of three fields. These are simply strung together in a rich text object which is the detail section of the report.

As I mentioned at the outset, I can get what I want by merging to a word processor. I just wondered whether I could do the same thing in A5.

I am working on the legal format as well as I have lots of legal talent in the immediate family. I will want your comments on that part of the project.

The complexity of the task makes it easier to understand why professional bibliographic software is so expensive.

All the best,
Bill

[Doug Chanley]

RE: Hanging indent

Hi Bill....

I have used [OCCURS] & [AT]functions in a memo field, I know that xbasic help says
that occurs will not work in a memo field but I used it to locate the number of
times the string "Authors:" occured in a memo field. I used it to generate the
"Best of Archive" message posts by author pages. You might try using something
similar to locate where the ascii chr()for word wrap is in your rich text memo
field.

I would think that if the memo field was the same width on the entry form as it is
in the report that it would wrap in the exact same place. So if this worked you
could put a script in a button for the entry form that would find where the text
wraps & write some chr(32) "spaces" after the wrap for the indent, then locate the next wrap. What chr() is the ascii value for word wrap ..... would it be just a
line feed only?

Below is how I used the occurs & at functions to locate the string, don't know if
this will help, but might be worth a few minutes?

tbl=table.current()
tbl.fetch_first()

while .not. tbl.fetch_eof()

' find the number of times the word "author:" occurs in the memo
num = occurs("Author:", tbl.contents)
trace.writeln("value found "+LTRIM(STR(num))+" times.")

for i= 1 to num


pos=AT("Author:",tbl.contents, i)

a_name=ltrim(left(substr(tbl.contents,pos+7,60),50))
pos2= AT(CHR(10),a_name,1)
name2=alltrim(substr(a_name,1,pos2-1))
trace.writeln("position ="+ str(pos)+" Occurance "+str(i))
trace.writeln(name2)
tbl2.enter_begin()
tbl2.thread_id=tbl.thread_id
tbl2.name=name2
tbl2.headline=tbl.headline
tbl2.enter_end(.t.)


next i

tbl.fetch_next()
end while
tbl2.close()
end

[whanigsberg]

RE: Hanging indent

Hi Doug,

Thanks for looking at this. I will go through your code in detail later today even though I doubt its relevance to the issue at hand. Who cares. It is useful for something, and once it is in my head I will recognize the something when I encounter it.

Meanwhile, you wrote "I would think that if the memo field was the same width on the entry form as it is in the report that it would wrap in the exact same place."

There is a tiny confusing here. The Rich text object in in the report only. It contains three fields from the temp table on which the report is based. The data entry form contains no rich text fields, only lots and lots of fields many of which are unused for most entries. They are needed because some entries require them. For example, a few books require a volume number although must do not.

Consequently the entries to be printed vary greatly in length and the formatting must adjust.

The print process is a script which creates the contents of the three fields and writes them to the temp table. The report is based on that.

The style reference I am using sets out a typology of formats depending on the type of reference. It horrifies me to have to tell you that there are 55 types each of requires at least some difference in format.

For the moment I am content to deal with the most common types, perhaps 10-20.

Thanks again,
Bill

[Doug Chanley]

RE: Hanging indent

Bill,

I have a better idea of what your up against now, I didn't fully understand
the situation & still may not.... but here goes.

Have you tried working with num=LEN(trim(field)) to determine the length of the
charactor string before you write it to the temp table? If you know how many
charactors the rich text obj. will hold before it wraps and none of the 3 fields
used in the RTO are longer than 1 line ..... Could you use PADR() for the first
line & PADL(PADR(fieldname)) for the indented lines?

so if the RTO wraps at say 40 charactors & you have the integer 'num' you could
do some simple math to determine the PADL() & PADR() values.

dim pl as n
dim pr as n
dim num as n
dim wrap as n

wrap=40
pl=10
pr=wrap-num-pl

set pl=0 for the field that represents the first line in RTO & 10(or what ever)
for the indented lines there after. The field lengths for the temp table should
be equal to the wrap length of the RTO. Then fetch through the entry table &
write to the temp table with the left & right padding necessary for the desired
output in the report.

On the other hand, I may still be in the dark here! So if I am missing something,
let me know. I don't know how you could get the formating into the RTO as the report is being generated. That leads me to think that the answer is in writing the desired format into the fields in the temp table.


Good luck Bill!

[whanigsberg]

RE: Hanging indent

Ok Doug, I give up. You're the pit bull of formatting.

Seriously, that is an interesting approach which I had not considered. Now here's a question. Given that we are using a proportional font, can we know how many characters will fit on a line before it wraps? Does it remain constant?

I'll have to work with this and see. For the moment I am struggling to just get the correct text into the temp table which is proving to be challenging enough, thank you very much.

Just a note on why having to merge output to a word processor is not tragic. In many cases, the reference list is destined to become part of a research paper which of course is contained in a word processing file so it is going there anyway. It could be appended to the text of the paper or the word processor's master document feature could be employed to manage a paper split among several files (chapters, biblio, appendix, for example).

Thanks again for helping me to think about this problem. I know your technique is a solution, either for this or for some other issue.

All the best,
Bill

[Doug Chanley]

RE: Hanging indent

Bill,

I think that you are the pit bull, for tackling things like this!
Merging the output to a word processor may be your best choice,
no formatting problems, & the end result is that both a report
& the word processor file gets printed.... Unless there is a reason
that you want to keep everything in the database, that is the way I would
handle it. I would like to see your script for merging the data to a word
processor.

I would think that the proportional font might be a problem, but previewing
the report with some sample data would give you the answers you are looking for.

I have an idea that you are the type that likes to explore all your options
before you decide which direction you take for a solution. There is a wise
saying (paraphrased) "You can't judge the value of a thing until you have a
complete understanding of what it is." So which ever way you go Bill, I am
sure that it will be the best option for the particular situation.

As for my suggestion, it was a quick responce with few details, there may be
something there you can use, & if there is I know that you will dig until you
find it.

Good luck Bill...