HOWTO: Apply Rich Text Effects in Visual FoxPro Reports

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, versions 3.0, 3.0b, 5.0, 5.0a, 6.0
  on the following platforms: NT, Win95, Win98

SUMMARY

From time to time it would be good to have the ability to add formatting effects to individual words within Microsoft Visual FoxPro reports. This can be accomplished with the Rich Text ActiveX control, a general field and a OLE bound control on a Visual FoxPro report.

MORE INFORMATION

This example shows how to underline parts of a field from a table and display that formatting on a report. You can apply any effect or combination of effects possible in Rich Text to your example.

1. Open Visual FoxPro and create a new report.



2. Add a Picture/Active-X Bound Control to the detail band of the report. Set its FIELD property to Dcolor.gcolor.



3. Save the report as rtfDemo.



4. Paste the following code into a new program. Save that program in the same directory as the report, then run it.




CLOSE ALL
CLEAR ALL
tSafety = SET("safety") &&Store SET status of Safety to a variable
SET SAFETY OFF &&Check to see if the Dcolor table exists
IF FILE("dcolor.dbf")
	USE dcolor EXCLUSIVE
ELSE
	CREATE TABLE dcolor (dcolor c(20),gcolor g) &&Create and add records if DColor table doesn't exist
	INSERT INTO dcolor (dcolor) VALUES ("Red")
	INSERT INTO dcolor (dcolor) VALUES ("Green")
	INSERT INTO dcolor (dcolor) VALUES ("Blue")
	INSERT INTO dcolor (dcolor) VALUES ("Purple")
	INSERT INTO dcolor (dcolor) VALUES ("Orange")
	INSERT INTO dcolor (dcolor) VALUES ("Yellow")
ENDIF
_rtfFile = SYS(3)+".rtf" &&Create a legal file name with a .RTF extension
*NOTE: The file must have a .RTF extension to work properly
SCAN &&Create a Richtext OLE bound control in the general field of the dColor table
	SET TEXTMERGE TO &_rtfFile NOSHOW
	SET TEXTMERGE ON 
	*!!IMPORTANT!! The following richtext formatting line(s) need to be 
         *included as one line in your program.
         \\{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033{\fonttbl
         {\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Times New Roman;}}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20
          The big \ul <<ALLT(dcolor.dcolor)>>\ulnone  dog\par}
	SET TEXTMERGE TO
	APPEND GENERAL gcolor FROM &_rtfFile CLASS "RICHTEXT.RICHTEXTCTRL.1"
ENDSCAN
SET SAFETY &tSafety
ERASE &_rtfFile

REPORT FORM rtfdemo PREVIEW NOCONSOLE
USE
CLOSE ALL 

When the report is printed, the color is underlined in the text.

NOTE: In some cases the print preview of RTF formatted text does not look correct. However, when the string is printed, the output is formatted correctly .

TIP: To generate a string similar to the one in the above code, create a template for your expression in Microsoft WordPad (or other application capable of creating Rich Text Files). Underline, color, and apply any other formatting to your text, then save it to a .RTF file. Open the .RTF file in Notepad and copy/paste the Rich Text code into your Visual FoxPro program.

(This application requires the RichTX32.OCX control. Visual FoxPro 3.0 and 3.0b do not ship with RichTX32.OCX.)

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbActiveX kbReportWriter kbVFp300 kbVFp300b kbVFp500 kbVFp500a kbVFp600 kbGrpFox
Version : WINDOWS:3.0,3.0b,5.0,5.0a,6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto