Text formatting commands on custom reports

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Text formatting commands on custom reports:

These commands specify how you want a section of text to appear. To indicate the start and end of a section of text, you put something at the start and end of the section. A command indicates the start and an "end" command indicates the end. For example to make some text be in bold characters you would enter: {font BOLD} <some text> {/font} The {/font} indicates the end of the bold section.

When entering text for a paragraph you do not need to press Enter at the end of each line. Text will automatically scroll to the next line. When printing or displaying, the text will be formatted so it fits between the margins you have set. Press Enter when you need to start another line or paragraph. Each paragraph must be 1000 characters or less. (about 12-15 lines of text)

The text you enter can be in foreign characters as well as Latin ones. For example, Chinese or Korean.

Here are the commands that determine the format of the text:

{align left} Align the text that follows to the left side of the page at the left margin that is given in Setup|Preferences....

{align center} Align the text that follows to be centered on the page.

{align right} Align the text that follows to the right side of the page. Since most printers cannot print to the edge of the page, the text will be a bit to the left of the right side.

{align left W E} Align the text that follows in a column that is W inches from the left margin of the page and E inches from the left margin or right side of the page. To indicate whether E is from the left margin or right side add an L or an R after it. The text is left-justified within this range. Eg: {align left 1.0 5.0L} means the left side is 1" from the left margin and the right side is 5" from the left margin. {align left 1.0 2.0R} means the left side is 1" from the left margin and the right side is 2" from the right side of the page.

{align center W E} Align the text that follows in a column that is W inches from the left margin of the page and E inches from the left margin or right side of the page. The text is centered within this column. (Put an L or an R after E to indicate a distance from the left margin or right side.)

{align right 0 E} Align the text that follows to be E inches from the left margin or right side of the page. (Put an L or an R after E to indicate a distance from the left margin or right side.)

{/align} Stop the current text alignment and return to the previous alignment. If no {align} command is given the text is left-justfied at the margin set under Setup|Preferences.

{font NAME P STYLE COLOR VALIGN ANGLE} Change the font, the size, style or color of the text that follows. NAME is a new font name enclosed in double quotes. For example: {font "Arial"} changes the font to Arial.
The P tells how many points bigger to make the font. For example: {font +2} makes it 2 points bigger and {font -4} makes it 4 points smaller.
The font STYLE can also be changed. The style can be any combination of: bold, underline and italic. The default font name and size are in Preferences. When no style is given it will be regular.
For the font color, you can use any of these standard colors: red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, white, grey, gray, silver, black, brown, acqua, orange, purple, lime, pink or light-green. To make a different color enter: COLOR=R G B where R, G and B are the red, green and blue parts of the color. eg: color=255 30 95 Each color should be a number from 0 to 255. For example: color=0 0 0 means black, color=255 255 255 means white.
VALIGN is used when you have different sizes of fonts on the same line. When it is missing the bottom of the characters are aligned. If you have the word top it will align the top of the characters.
To make the text slanted supply an angle in degrees. The angle is measured counter-clockwise from the 'x' axis. e.g. {font angle=30} makes the text sloped 30 degrees (i.e. going up to the right). An angle of 90 degrees will make the text perpendicular to the current text. This can be used to have part of the text in portrait and another part in landscape.

{/font} Return to the previous font.

{adjust X Y} Adjust the position of the text or image that follows. When the X or Y have a + or - the text or image will be X inches to the right and Y inches down from its current position. For example {adjust +0.5 -1} will move it half an inch to the right and one inch up. When there is no + or - the position will be from the left and top margins of the page. For example, {adjust 0 3.5} will put the top of the text, exactly 3.5 inches down from the top margin.

{/adjust} Stop the adjustment and return to the previous one.

{margin LEFT TOP} Override the left and top margin just for this report. For example, the margins might usually be 1" on the left and top but for a certain letter you want 0.5" so you would use {margin 0.5 0.5}.

{heading2} Indicate a heading to put at the top of the second page if a receipt does not fit on one page. For example: {heading2}Continuation of receipt for:{donors:name}{/heading2}

{/heading2} The end of the second page heading.

{header} Indicate a header to put at the top of each page. For example to have a page # at the top put this at the top: {header}Page {page #} of {page T}{/header}

{/header} The end of the header

{footer} Indicate a footer to put at the bottom of each page. You should have an {adjust} command in the footer to put the text at the bottom of the page. For example, if your page has a 1" margin at the top then you can put a page # in the bottom 0.5" of the page with this: {footer}{adjust 0 9.5}Page {page #} of {page T}{/adjust}{/footer} If your report has any text that may not fit on one page, (such as a {details} or {ytdsummary} command) then the footer should be put before that because it must know that there is a footer to skip over it.

{/footer} The end of the footer

{paper SIZE ORIENTATION} Indicate the size or orientation of paper you will be printing on.
SIZE can be letter or legal. For example, if you have a letter/receipt that needs legal paper, type {paper legal}, near the top, to automatically switch the paper size on your printer.

SIZE can also be fewer to reduce the number of pages needed by combining the letters for several donors onto the same page. For, example you may have a batch of 15 letters that will take only 5 pages if three donors will fit on each page.

ORIENTATION can be portrait or landscape. This will set it so you don't have to go to the printer setup to select it.

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