C++ multiline text blocks

Question

I've to create a sort-of Christmas greeting card which needs to include designs generated using nested-for loops.

The output needs to have a border on all four sides with variable text inside along with the nested-for loop designs.

Something along the lines of this:

I tried using a for-loop to generate the border a put the designs inside, but the problem arose when printing multiline designs.

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

using namespace std;

int main(){
    char tree[10][10];
    int i,j;

    for(i=0; i<7; i++){
        for(j=0; j<7; j++){
            if(i==0 && j==3){
                // cout << '*';
                tree[i][j] = '*';
            }
            else if(i==1 && j==3){
                //   cout << '|';
                tree[i][j] = '|';
            }
            else if(i==2 && j==3){
                //   cout << 'M';
                tree[i][j] = 'M';
            }
            else if(i==3 && j>1 && j<5){
                //   cout << 'A';
                tree[i][j] = 'A';
            }
            else if(i==4 && j>0 && j<6){
                if(j % 2 == 0){
                    //          cout << 'o';
                    tree[i][j] = 'o';
                } else {
                    //    cout << 'A';
                    tree[i][j] = 'A';
                }
            }
            else if(i==5){
                if(j % 2 == 0){
                    //       cout << 'A';
                    tree[i][j] = 'A';
                } else {
                    //     cout << '~';
                    tree[i][j] = '~';
                }
            }
            else if(i==6 && j==3){
                //   cout << "M";
                tree[i][j] = 'M';
            }
            else {
                //   cout << ' ';
                tree[i][j] = ' ';
            }
        }
        tree[i][7] = '\n';
    }

    tree[6][8] = '\0';

    for(i=0; i<30; i++){
        for(j=0; j<70; j++){
            if(i==0 || i==29){
                cout << "^";
            } else if(j==0 || j==69){
                cout << "*";
            }
            int a,b;
            if(j>=42 && j<50 && i >= 10 && i< 17){
                for(a=0; a<7; a++){
                    for(b=0; b<8; b++){
                        cout << tree[a][b];
                        j++;
                    }
                    i++;
                }
            }

            else {
                cout << " ";
            }
        }
        cout << endl;
    }

    return 0;
}

This pushes the entire border down, since the design is multiline.

I'm a little stumped about the approach. Perhaps using setw()?

Answer 1

So I figured a solution to my question.

Instead of printing directly to stdout, I'm storing the output in a 2D char array.

The following will store the border:

 for(i=0; i<50; i++){
   for(j=0; j<70; j++){
       if(i==0 || j==0 || i==49 || j==69){
          finalOutput[i][j] = '*'; //Just for the sake of an example
       } else {
          finalOutput[i][j] = ' ';
       }
   }
 }

And the following will store the tree at some place inside the box,

 for(i=30; i<7; i++){
    for(j=30; j<7; j++){
       finalOutput[i][j] = tree[i-30][j-30];
    }
 }

Then printing finalOutput solves my problem.