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Focal Point    Focal Point Forums  Hop To Forum Categories  WebFOCUS/FOCUS Forum on Focal Point     Spot Markers in PDF - Anyone know what they represent

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Spot Markers in PDF - Anyone know what they represent
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hammo1j
Master
posted
As an old ex-mainframer I was pleased to see that spot markers on PDF still work but what do they represent?

In the old days characters were all fixed in size so a spot marker meant the column number.

Now with variable space around the character, bold and italic, and proportional fonts this does not apply.

So what does <60 represent?

I am currently just using spot markers and adjusting by trial and error but it would be nice to know the underlying theory!

Regards

John


Server: WF 7.6.2 ( BID/Rcaster) Platform: W2003Server/IIS6/Tomcat/SQL Server repository Adapters: SQL Server 2000/Oracle 9.2
Desktop: Dev Studio 765/XP/Office 2003 Applications: IFS/Jobscope/Maximo
 
Posts: 888 | Location: Airstrip One | Registered: October 06, 2006Report This Post
GamP
Virtuoso
posted Hide Post
I'm guessing here, nothing firm.
It could be that the spot marker indeed indicates the column number of where the subsequent text is going to be placed. That would then translate to a position on the line that is equal to the number of spaces in the font that is set for that line. So, with a proportional font this would be a relatively small strecth of white space, whereas with a non-proportional font this stretch would be much larger.
If you change the font to something non-proportional, then evrything falls nicely into place again, thereby supporting this train of thought.
This may be total nonsense, but at least I tried ....


GamP
- Using AS 8.2.01 on Windows 10 - IE11.
in Focus since 1988
 
Posts: 1961 | Location: Netherlands | Registered: September 25, 2007Report This Post
Leah
Virtuoso
posted Hide Post
I agree with GamP, of course I've found when going to non-proportional fonts, such things as using the label option goes weird on column width errors.


Leah
 
Posts: 1317 | Location: Council Bluffs, IA | Registered: May 24, 2004Report This Post
mgrackin
Virtuoso
posted Hide Post
In the WebFOCUS world the only spot marker that seems to be usful is the <+0> marker. It is used to separate text items.

I wrote two articles on HTML and PDF report design. The second article may be helpful to you to give you a jump start with positioning HEADING, FOOTING, SUBHEAD and SUBFOOT text in the WebFOCUS world.

http://www.informationbuilders.com/support/developers/htmlpdf_part2.html


Thanks!

Mickey

FOCUS/WebFOCUS 1990 - 2011
 
Posts: 995 | Location: Gaithersburg, MD, USA | Registered: May 07, 2003Report This Post
Francis Mariani
Expert
posted Hide Post
One of my superiors in a previous life did the following:

He set the REPORT font to Courier because it is mono-spaced.

He set the font for each report component to another font, Arial for example.

Then, when using spot markers, it appeared that the spot markers used the Courier font to figure out where to place a component while the component was displayed in the selected font.


Francis


Give me code, or give me retirement. In FOCUS since 1991

Production: WF 7.7.05M, Dev Studio, BID, MRE, WebSphere, DB2 / Test: WF 8.1.05M, App Studio, BI Portal, Report Caster, jQuery, HighCharts, Apache Tomcat, MS SQL Server
 
Posts: 10577 | Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Registered: April 27, 2005Report This Post
jgelona
Master
posted Hide Post
Francis, that is a nice tip and it makes sense. I nomimate this for the tips contest.


In FOCUS since 1985. Prod WF 8.0.08 (z90/Suse Linux) DB (Oracle 11g), Self Serv, Report Caster, WebServer Intel/Linux.
 
Posts: 975 | Location: Oklahoma City | Registered: October 27, 2006Report This Post
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