>>>My customer uses 7 different preprinted forms with an existing program of his. He wants me to replace the program with one that will print the appropriate form (as well as the contents) on plain paper, using the existing layout, so that he doesn’t have to keep changing paper and buying forms.
>>>
>>>The forms include a company logo, lines, words, and gray areas. One of them needs a bar chart based on the data that gets filed in on that particular form (simple character graphics could be used here).
>>>
>>>I’m skilled in VFP 5.0, but this stuff is new to me. Do I create the form in Word? If I do, how do I merge it with the data? How do I position the data correctly on the form? Any ideas as to the basic approach would be appreciated.
>>>
>>>Bob Cassady
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>>If you use MS Word, you would use OLE automation or DDE. Either way, you can easily stick the data into the document. I think you could just use the VFP report designer though. As far as the graph, it would be nice to use a graphing program to create a bitmap and just use that picture in your report. Or, you could draw a bunch of rectangles on the form and just print the proper rectangles based on the data (depending on how variable the data can be).
>>
>>Joe
>
>I came form a Clipper environment originally, and so the VFP report designer has been an untouched mystery. Thanks to your prompting, I have now taken a look and it looks like it will do the job. Thanks for a push in the right direction.
>
>Bob

Bob,
Turn on the position reporting so that the status bar shows top, left, bottom and width when an object is selected. Setting the units to inches and using a ruler to measure lines, etc, from the top of the form you can get a nearly identical match with about any preprinted report. I do this frequently with timesheets, etc. Oh, also set the page layout to print the maximum page areal - ie, no margins.
jerry