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LIGHTLY TECHNICAL OBSERVATIONS ON PEOPLESOFT, SQR, AND RELATED AND UNRELATED TOPICS

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In the last post, on SQR print positioning and the report grid, we ended with this example:



That is the result of printing "First", "Second" and "Third" in sequence using the current position each time:

   print 'First'   (1,1)
   print 'Second'  ()
   print 'Third'   ()
   
   alter-printer font=4
   print 'First'   (3,1)
   print 'Second'  ()
   print 'Third'   ()
   
   alter-printer point-size=20
   print 'First'   (5,1)
   print 'Second'  ()
   print 'Third'   ()

The font is specified as a number. Find these numbers in your .INI file. (Look for a file named SQR.INI or, if you are a PeopleSoft user, it might be called PSSQR.INI. It's also specified in the Runtime section on the configuration panel in the SQR debugger.) I'm looking at this file now and see two sections: [Fonts] and [PDF Fonts], with slightly different font names for certain numbers. The PDF Fonts are probably the exact ones you see in the output. In general, you would most likely use one of these:

• 3 = Courier [New], a fixed-pitch font
• 4 = Helvetica, a proportional sans-serif font very similar to Arial
• 5 = Times [New] Roman, a proportional serif font

With that out of the way, let's look back at the positioning problem. Fixed-pitch fonts are the ones where every character takes the same space. In proportional fonts characters take different amounts of space. Proportional fonts are generally easier to read and look better.



If, as in the first example above, we want to print "First", "Second" and "Third" together in sequence in a proportional font, we need to stop relying on SQR's default position and just do this:

   print 'FirstSecondThird'  ()

 ! The WRONG way:
   print $FirstName   (1, 1)
   print ' '          ()
   print $LastName    ()

 ! The RIGHT way:
   let $x = $FirstName || ' ' || $LastName
   print $x  (1, 1)

The next positioning problem will be illustrated in two ways. First, look carefully at the image above comparing fixed and proportional fonts. The line spacing on the proportional font is very tight. It would be nice if we could advance just a little more for each line, but the only possibility after (+1) is (+2) and that would be too much space. (Fractional lines are not allowed.) Positioning within a line is a similar problem. Suppose we wanted to print "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Each PRINT statement can print either normal or bold text, not both. So we would have to do something like this:

   alter-printer font=4  ! Helvetica
   print 'The                             jumps over the lazy dog.'   (1, 1)
   print '       quick brown fox'  (1, 1)  bold

However, a number of these positioning challenges can be solved using a one-point coordinate system, up next.