I'm working with CR version 13.0.25 - I believe the actual latest version as of this date is 13.0.26, so, basically the latest version of CR. What I am working with is re-positioning elements on the report dynamically from the C# code.
There are a couple of the reports where the original rpt (designed a number of years ago) spans multiple pages. These in particular are giving me issues, but they are not the only ones. The issue here focuses on the y (vertical) dimension.
CR documents use a coordinate system that is based in the upper left corner of the document, and is also based on twips (1440 twips/in). So, in theory, I should be able to set the Top value for a ReportObject to 1440 and that element should be printed 1" from some benchmark (either top of the page or bottom of the margin - I'm fairly sure it's bottom of the margin).
My results do not seem to reflect this - at least not exactly.
When I set the Top value, it appears that with some of the documents, the y dimension is scaled. In fact, I can apply a constant scaling factor (it varies according to the document) and I can make the fields appear with a relative 1" spacing all of the way to the bottom of the page. However, that scaling factor varies from document to document.
So, besides experimenting in our production code, I have also done the following:
I created a C# console app that opens an rpt file, grabs some of the elements on it, and re-positions them, then sends it to the printer. I designed a new rpt file with headers and footers sized as small as I could get them, and put 10 text fields in the details section. I iterate through the fields (via ReportDocument and ReportObjects and re-position them at 0, 1440 (1"), 2880 (2") etc.
This works perfectly with a document that has the default margins (.167 inches by default on each side). The first element has its top butted against the bottom of the margin, the second element is 1" from the top of the first element to the top of the second element, and so on down the page. If, however, I reduce the margins to zero - either programmatically or in the design, I get this scaling effect. The elements are all now about 7/8" or so apart, instead of the 1" that I would expect.
Does anyone know of any magic formula(s) or documentation on why the coordinate system appears to be changing? I could understand that if I change the margin that could offset everything on the page (assuming that the margin is our baseline) but it would seem to me that the inter-element spacing, being 1440 should still render at 1".
I believe Y is the vertical distance from the top of that section, not from the top of the page.