Understanding How to Align Fields and Columns
When you initially create a report section, fields and columns might not line up properly. RDA provides alignment options to enable you to precisely adjust the appearance of the report output. For example, you create a group section and need to align fields under other fields. Or you create a columnar report with a level break footer that calculates totals. You change the size of the columns in the columnar section, and the total in the level break footer no longer aligns with the column that it is totaling.
When you align fields, you are presented with options based on your selection to align objects within a section or across sections. On the Align Objects form, options are listed under these headings:
Alignment Options |
Description |
|---|---|
Left to Right |
Available for aligning objects within sections and across sections. |
Top to Bottom |
Available for aligning fields across sections only. |
When you align data fields, use these guidelines:
Clear the focus of the cursor in all report sections before you select the objects for alignment.
Click an empty portion of each report section to clear the focus of the cursor. You could have the cursor focused on a field in a section, such as the page header, and not realize it. When you align a field without clearing the focus, a field from another section, such as the page header, will be aligned with the selected field.
Designate one object as an anchor to which other objects are aligned.
The anchor field is indicated by a black border; the objects to be aligned with it are indicated by a gray border. The anchor field is the last field that you select during the alignment process.
The black border indicates the currently selected field.
The entire object must be selected for alignment, not just the constant text or variable.
The anchor can be a disconnected constant or variable object.
The objects that are selected can be within the same section or across sections.
The fields are aligned rather than the text within the fields.
This is especially noteworthy when you center-align fields. Objects are centered based on field length and not on the length of the text within the fields.
The alignment process cannot be used on tabular rows.
When you align columns from tabular and columnar sections, use these guidelines:
To align columns with group section objects, select the column in the tabular or columnar section that you want to use as the anchor for the alignment.
To align columns with columns in another columnar or tabular section, you can select only one column in each tabular or columnar section.